PIP handbook definition query

AlwaysPacing,
There are 2 important Regulations that shed light on how to interpret health conditions and whether they are sufficient to give rise to descriptor points.
Gary has already referred to the 4 'reliability criteria' under Reg 4(2A)PIP Regs 2013 , safety, acceptable standard etc.
If you can't achieve all 4 criteria you should get points, providing the relevant health problem is for the majority of days. (Reg.7)

For safety, you might need supervision. One of the leading cases involved a person with epilepsy- he didn't have many fits, but clearly if he was eg holding a hot pan, in the bath, or perhaps crossing the road, then there was a risk of substantial harm. So, even though the fits were seldom, the risk was there al the time, hence he could score points for supervision for eg cooking, bathing.
The other facet to consider is the repetition criteria. You need to be able to repeat the relevant descriptor activity across the whole day as many times as reasonably required. Different activities have different repetition rates. Thus it wouldn't be unreasonable to argue cooking could be 3 or 4 times a day. Eating and drinking could be more, as could toilet needs. However if you have a need to drink throughout day for health reasons, or you have incontinence YOUR personal repetition rate could be more than eg your neighbour or relative. If you can't perform one or more 'repetitions' unless it is a very trivial period, you FAIL to repeat across the whole day and hence shoukd score points as relevant. Non- repeat days count towards the 'majority of days'.
Reg 7 provides that if one or more descriptors in the same set apply equally fir the majority of days you'll get the highest value of points.
If 2 activities in the set apply unequally for majority of days you get the points for the most prevalent.
However if no one activity gets to the majority of days you can aggregate. So over 1 month eg if activity 1b is for 12 days, 1c is for 6 days, and 1d is 5 days, when added together the total is 23 which is clearly over 50% of days. Here 1b is the most prevalent so that would be the appropriate points score- even though no one descriptor applies over 50% of days.

Tiredness, fatigue, breathlessness and pain are all things that can be 'non acceptable' and might cause you to be unsafe or unable to repeat even the next day or beyond. Do your disabilities interact?

It is possible, albeit perhaps unlikely, you could be non acceptable standard for some days, unable to repeat on others and unsafe on the remainder or too slow. You don't have to have the same disability for each day to count as part of your majority. ( Hence the aggregation under Reg 7 could help.)

Be really critical. Ask yourself ( and the family!) do I manage to PIP activities in a haphazard, slapdash, unsafe kind of way, because I have no help, and I just have to get on with things, the alternative being sat in the chair and doing nothing! Would a fly on the wall documentary conclude I really need some help or supervision etc?
It hurts, I'm so slow, I cut myself I fall over and stumble, I'm clumsy - if this applies to you, think whether you really do need help. Doesn't matter if you don't get help- but if you do need it points are there ready to be grabbed!

I hope this helps.

LL26