Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of the 2 March 2017 to Question 65538, on personal independence payment, what the criteria is for a lack of mental capacity or insight for assessing a person with a brain tumour as eligible for additional support when assessing a personal independence payment claim.

The assessment for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is designed to treat people as individuals, considering the impact of their impairment or health condition on their everyday life and how each claimant has personally adapted to living with a disability. The PIP assessment is not a medical assessment, requiring the Health Professional to diagnose a condition or its severity and recommend treatment options; instead it is focussed on the claimant’s functional ability.

We recognise that for some individuals with brain tumour(s) additional difficulties can arise, however there is no automatic entitlement to PIP by virtue of a health condition (except in terminal illness cases), either for new claimants or those claimants who were in receipt of DLA and who are being reassessed under PIP. We recognise that the symptoms of brain tumour(s) can fluctuate over time and where an activity cannot be performed for part of a day, it is deemed that it cannot be done on that day.