Understanding of brain injury must be central to any PIP reforms

The Timms review, which is examining the future of Personal Independence Payments (PIP), published an update on 9 September setting out emerging recommendations from their findings. This follows interim findings in July where the review admitted that PIP is not fit for purpose.

Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is a non-means-tested benefit that helps disabled people meet the extra costs of living with a long-term health condition or disability.

For brain injury survivors, one of the most significant proposals in the emerging recommendations is improvements to assessing and accounting for fluctuating conditions in both PIP and any future replacement benefit. Many effects of brain injury vary from day to day, meaning assessments can miss their true impact.

Headway UK has long campaigned for improvements to the PIP assessment process, consistently highlighting how the hidden, complex and fluctuating effects of brain injury are often poorly understood by assessors and not fully reflected in assessment criteria.

Improving communications from the Department of Work and Pensions and the introduction of an advocacy service to navigate PIP also sound good in theory.

However, the emerging recommendations lack detail and the proposed introduction of non-cash awards in some cases risks reducing independence, choice and control of disabled individuals.

Richard Wood, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at Headway UK, said:

"It's encouraging to see recognition that conditions, such as brain injury, can fluctuate and that assessments need to reflect people's real experiences rather than a snapshot in time. However, the key question is how these proposals would work in practice with lots of detail still missing.

"Brain injury survivors have repeatedly told us that the assessment process often fails to recognise the hidden and variable effects of their condition.

The proposals are not final and will now be tested through workshops involving disabled people across the UK.

In our submission to the Timms Review, we called for mandatory brain injury training for all benefits assessors, greater recognition of fluctuating and non-visible disabilities, and reforms that help ensure decisions are right first time.

Headway UK will continue to engage with the review as it develops, while urging policymakers to ensure any future reforms properly reflect the realities of living with brain injury