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New PIP Assessment Guide - spilling food, and commodes
The PIP Assessment Guide for health professionals has been updated, with new guidance about the interpretation of the descriptors:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/368122/pip-assessment-guide.pdf
A couple of points leapt out at me:
- Activity 2, taking nutrition (page 99)
The guidance now specifices that “Spilling food can be considered, regular spillage requiring a change of clothes after meals is not an acceptable standard of taking nutrition.”
My view is that if someone is prone to spilling food or drink on themselves, supervision or prompting probably won’t prevent this; therefore the most relevant descriptor seems to be descriptor F, “cannot convey food and drink to their mouth and needs another person to do so”, which scores 10 points, enough to qualify for standard rate from that activity alone.
- Activity 5, Managing toilet needs or incontinence (page 105):
The guidance says “Descriptor A [0 points] may be appropriate for claimants who use a commode due to limited mobility (to the toilet) but can manage their toilet needs or incontinence. If the urinary tract is normal there will be little risk of incontinence no matter how long it takes to mobilise to the toilet. If there is, for example, a bladder problem and the claimant will be incontinent before they reach the toilet, then the commode is being used as aid for the bladder condition (toilet needs) not the mobility problem (mobility needs). Urinary tract conditions that cause urgency of micturition will be relevant, other urinary tract conditions may not be relevant.”
I had previously believed that if a claimant relied on a commode because they could not reliably go up or down stairs to reach a toilet they would be likely to score under descriptor B (needing an aid), but this suggests otherwise. The new guidance seems to suggest that if the claimant has no ‘bladder problem’ but their toilet is upstairs and they cannot get upstairs, they won’t score anything.
Do others agree with this interpretation? Has anyone noticed anything else interesting in the new guidance?