Pip for ocd and anxiety

Gina1985 wrote: Hello I was wondering what my chances are of getting pip? With firstly ocd and secondly sciatica I struggle with them both severely have numbness all the way down my leg leg and back pain which I take strong tablets for and my ocd is that bad that my constant hand washing has made my hands sore I have to repeatedly do things 8 times in order to stop the anxiety that I have I find myself very stressed and down because of how bad things are:-(

PIP awards are made because of the limitations that a claimant has from their conditions rather than the conditions themselves.

I realise that this is an over simplification, but you will need to explain how, as an example, your OCD effects your ability to Wash or how it might effect your getting dressed or any of the other activities. In a similar vein your leg and back pain may restrict your ability to prepare and cook a simple meal or again to wash.

Have a look at our PIP Claim guide to get a better understanding of the criteria that you will be assessed against.

www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/help-for-claimants/pip

Every activity must be done reliably and for the majority of days for you not be able to score points, so again as an example, if your OCD rituals mean that it would take you more than twice as long to wash yourself as the maximum time a healthy person would be expected to take and you are effected in this way for four or more days a week then you should score expect to score points for this activity.

If you have any more questions then please reply to this post and we will do our best to help.

Gordon

Gina1985 wrote: Thankyou I have had a look at the guides that you said would help and I have done the pip test to see how I score and I'm scoring enough for standard daily living and mobility I was just wondering whether it's better for me to get a letter from my gp or mental health team to support my application or should I wait and see as this might incur a charge ,also for each activity would I still score points on each one because of how having ocd means that I can't do any of these things in a reasonable amount of time because of all the rituals hand washing etc or would they refuse me because I can actually still do them?and with the mobility side of things my sciatica does limit me to how far I can walk without feeling faint and sick from the pain but what could be an example of how I've effects my mobility ? Thankyou for your help in advance this site is amazing so glad I joined

As I said before, you must be able to do the activities reliably, this word and the sub-phrases that define it are included in the legislation, so they are not just a convenient way of saying what you need to be able to do, if you cannot do an activity reliably then you should score points as a result.

However, you cannot assume that the assessor or the DWP Decision Maker will be able to make the leap from you having problems with one activity to your having the same problems with another, you need to spell out your issues for each activity even if this means repeating yourself.

Reliably applies to the Mobility activities in exactly the same way as it does for the Daily Living ones, so if you walking is so slow that it would take you more than twice as long as an able bodied person would to walk a particular distance then you cannot walk it in a timely manner and should not be classed as being able to walk it. If you have to stop walking after some number of metres because of pain then you cannot walk that distance safely and therefore you cannot walk it reliably. If you can walk a distance but have to stop to catch your breath every couple of metres then you cannot do it to a necessary and appropriate standard and should not be classed as being able to walk that distance.

Speak to your GP to see what help they will provide you, you may be surprised at the help they will provide!

If they say that the DWP will write to them, then tell them that the DWP are under no legal obligation to do so and in fact write to very few GPs for further information, so if they want to help you it has to be now rather than later.

Gordon