PIP and Severe mental impairment

Afternoon all
Does anyone know whether or not people will be able to claim the High Rate Mobility Component on the basis of severe mental impairment under the new PIP rules and regulations?

Everything is in draft so far, but my understanding is that 12 points will be required to give entitlement to the higher rate (called the ‘enhanced rate’ in the new regime). Under the descriptors for the activity of “Planning and following a journey” in Schedule 3 of the draft regs, only one -

“e. Needs either –
(i) supervision, prompting or a support dog to follow a journey to a familiar destination; or
(ii) a journey to a familiar destination to have been planned entirely by another person.”

gives sufficient points (15) by itself to meet the threshold. But clearly, some severely mentally impaired people should be able to qualify via this route.

However, the aggragation of points is possible - so someone could meet one of the 4, 8 or 10 point descriptors under “Planning and following a journey” and combine these with points for one of the descriptors under the “Moving around” activity to arrive at a combined score of 12.

I can’t give you a link to the draft regs, but if you type “Personal Independence Payment draft regulations” into Google, and then click on the first result, it will open a PDF of the draft regs and assessment criteria.

Thanks

The question came about from a meeting I attended this morning.  I explained to the group how the draft regulations allowed for the High Rate as you suggest, [Activity 11 (E)], but there did’t seem to be a route to deem somene being entitled to the higher mobility component as there is under DLA as a person with a severe mental imparment in receipt of the high rate care component etc…..  Maybe the people who drafted the regulations think that 11(E) has it all covered.  Are they right?

Not necessarily “all covered” - but on the face it, the proposed provision seems to be not just simpler but easier to meet. Off the top of my head, no need to show an arrested or incomplete development of the brain, no need to show extreme disruptive behaviour, a requirement for someone to intervene to prevent injury or damage to property and a need for someone to be present and watching over whenever the claimant is awake…..

I would be very surprised if there were someone who presently meets these conditions but who would not require prompting or supervision to follow a journey to a familiar destination under PIP - but it’s quite easy to imagine how some people with mental impairment who cannot currently qualify for HRM might qualify under the new proposals.

Thanks again.  I’ll pass your comments onto the people asking the questions this end to discuss.  Much appreciated.