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PIP: Day and night needs

Jimm_Alumni

Myself and another community member found ourselves (respectively) disagreeing on a certain topic.

Are conditions or issues that affect you at night included in the PIP criteria?

Now, PIP makes no distinction between day and night needs, which is different from DLA. This was a concern for night-only needs people on DLA at the time as referenced here: https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/dla-cuts-who-will-lose-out-under-pip

PIP simply uses the term "day", which I find incredibly ambiguous. Though in some of its documentation for assessors, it does mention "stages of the day". In reference to whether doing an action in one stage of a day means they cannot do other actions in other "stages of the day".

The only time night is mentioned in the criteria is referencing to going out, where being able to go out only at night is not seen as "acceptable" and the claimant will still receive points. Would there be a need for this distinction if the assessor was only counting "daytime" only?

In my view, the term "day" means the 24 hour day. If your condition affects you at night, such as incontinence/toilet needs, getting in and out of bed, or in the example that brought up the discussion, being unable to manage use of a CPAP machine (treatment) to help you sleep.

I wanted to get other's views on this. To me, while I understand thinking "day" means just "daytime" due to its ambiguity, I think it would be horribly arbitrary to not include people who struggle with their conditions simply because it's a different time of the day.

While it wouldn't shock me if the DWP did do that, I find it hard to believe it would have meant to be interpreted that way.

For those curious:

Assessment criteria: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/personal-independence-payment-assessment-guide-for-assessment-providers/pip-assessment-guide-part-2-the-assessment-criteria

Assessment Process: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/personal-independence-payment-assessment-guide-for-assessment-providers/pip-assessment-guide-part-1-the-assessment-process

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Comments

Albus_Alumni

People can eat at night, do hobbies at night etc. So I'd have taken day to mean whenever the claimant is awake and conscious? That was how I filled in my PIP forms, though I did state day or night when I needed to clarify things

(If it doesn't mean the 24 hour period, I think it should do, or at least state that it means x oclock until y oclock. )

poppy123456

I'm sorry but i'm going to have to disgree here. PIP is about day time, it doesn't take into consideration any night time needs. I seen a discussion on another forum quite sometime ago about when the cut off for day time would be and the end of that discussion was no one could really answer that question.

Jimm_Scope said:

In my view, the term "day" means the 24 hour day. If your condition affects you at night, such as incontinence/toilet needs, getting in and out of bed, or in the example that brought up the discussion, being unable to manage use of a CPAP machine (treatment) to help you sleep.

Unfortunately, this makes no difference at all. This is where DLA and PIP are completely different. DLA did take into consideration night time needs.

If PIP took into consideration the 24 hour period then it would refer to "the majority of the time" it doesn't, it's the majority of the "days"

I agree with @chiarieds comment on the other thread that @Jimm_Scope is referring to. Those that do work night shifts will come home and go to bed, they will still do exactly the same things as they would do if they got up in the morning.. wash, dress, prepare a meal.. etc etc. There are some people that can't sleep at night so they sleep during the day, it makes no difference, day is day and night is night.

chiarieds

I can agree that if we take the word 'day' literally that it can mean a 24 hour period, or from sunrise to sunset.

If we think about the daily living component in PIP, then certain activities of daily living (the PIP activities/descriptors) are considered, but how would the word 'daily' normally be defined?

If someone told you they ran 3 miles daily, would you imagine this was done during the night?

It may seem ambiguous, however night time activities/needs aren't mentioned for PIP, tho as Jimm says, they are for DLA (& also Attendance Allowance).

Looking through the Social Security (Personal Independance Payment) Regulations 2013 the word 'night' isn't mentioned: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukdsi/2013/9780111532072/contents If night time was intended to be included, then I'm sure it would say so in these regs.

This reminds me of something I looked into thoroughly for the first time recently; it was how long a person could go abroad as far as PIP goes.....the answer up to 13 weeks according to these regs. A member said to me, well that doesn't help as it doesn't say how many times a year you could go away for up to 13 weeks. My thought was that altho it was no more than 13 weeks at any one time, you could do this more than once a year, otherwise these regs would have had to have said so.

The regs have to be absolutely clear, as they are, with no ambiguity. This is what the DWP have to adhere to, & we can only work with what the regs happen to be.

I'd also have to politely disagree with Albus, if it was said to be from a certain time in the morning until another time, this surely would be unfair. Some people may get up at 4am, others at 6am, 8 or 10 am, etc. It's from when a claimant gets up, showers, dresses etc, & considers the other PIP descriptors that a claimant may attempt/do during their day, until they undress & go to bed.