PIP Descriptors and Points: All 12 Activities, Box by Box

The PIP criteria are the 12 activities in Schedule 1 to the PIP Regulations 2013: 10 for daily living and 2 for mobility, each with descriptors worth a set number of points. You need 8 points in a component for the standard rate and 12 points for the enhanced rate.

GOV.UK says the Department for Work and Pensions will assess how difficult you find daily living and mobility tasks, and for each task will look at whether you can do it safely, how long it takes you and whether you need help to do it, from a person or using extra equipment. Each activity below shows the descriptors and points from Schedule 1, then the definitions and DWP guidance that go with them.

• 10 activities make up the Daily Living component; 2 make up Mobility. The two are scored separately.
• For each activity, the number of points is the number shown in column 3 of the table against whichever descriptor applies under regulation 7
• The scores for the 10 daily living activities are added together, and the scores for the 2 mobility activities are added together separately.
• 8 to 11 points in a component = standard rate; 12 or more = enhanced rate.
• A descriptor applies if it is satisfied on over 50% of the days of the required period, and GOV.UK describes this as difficulty more than half of the days over a 12-month period.
• Regulation 7 sets three cases: one descriptor satisfied on over 50% of days; two or more each satisfied on over 50% of days, where the highest-scoring applies; and none on over 50% of days alone but two or more scoring descriptors together on over 50% of days.

See also: how PIP points work, the reliability test, and fluctuating conditions and the 50% rule. To estimate your own total, use the free PIP points calculator.

The descriptors use a small set of defined terms. The definitions below are from Schedule 1 and regulations 2 and 4 of the PIP Regulations 2013.

The 10 daily living activities follow, then the 2 mobility activities.

Maximum 8 points. The points for the activity come from the one descriptor that applies under regulation 7.

What actually scores

• ✓Yes: A “simple meal” means a cooked one-course meal for one using fresh ingredients. “Prepare” means make food ready for cooking or eating, and “cook” means heat food at or above waist height.
• ✓Yes: Needing an aid, such as a perching stool or a spiked chopping board, scores descriptor b.
• ✓Yes: Descriptor c applies if you cannot cook a simple meal using a conventional cooker but can do so using a microwave.
• ✓Yes: Needing someone to remind, encourage or explain is prompting, descriptor d.
• ✓Yes: Needing someone present for safety, or to help physically, is supervision or assistance, descriptor e.

Maximum 10 points. The points for the activity come from the one descriptor that applies under regulation 7.

What actually scores

• ✓Yes: “Take nutrition” means cutting food into pieces, conveying food and drink to your mouth and chewing and swallowing food and drink, or taking nutrition by using a therapeutic source.
• ✓Yes: Needing specially adapted cutlery, supervision because you are at significant risk of choking, or someone to cut your food up scores descriptor b.
• ✓Yes: A “therapeutic source” means parenteral or enteral tube feeding, using a rate-limiting device such as a delivery system or feed pump, descriptors c and e.
• ✓Yes: Needing to be reminded or encouraged to eat is prompting, descriptor d, which scores 4 points.

Maximum 8 points. The points for the activity come from the one descriptor that applies under regulation 7.

What actually scores

• ✓Yes: “Managing medication” means taking medication where failing to do so is likely to make your health worse. DWP's assessment guide gives dosette boxes, alarms and reminders as examples of aids; needing an aid or needing prompting both score descriptor b (1 point).
• ✓Yes: “Monitoring a health condition” means detecting significant changes in your condition that are likely to make your health worse, and taking the action a registered doctor, nurse or health professional has advised.
• ✓Yes: “Therapy” is therapy done at home that a registered health professional has prescribed or recommended, such as domiciliary dialysis, talking therapies and exercise regimes. DWP's guide counts the time help is needed: 15 minutes of help with compression bandages each day totals 1 hour and 45 minutes a week, even though the bandages are worn all day.

Maximum 8 points. The points for the activity come from the one descriptor that applies under regulation 7.

What actually scores

• ✓Yes: Needing an aid such as a long-handled sponge, a shower seat or a bath rail scores descriptor b.
• ✓Yes: Needing supervision or prompting to wash or bathe is descriptor c. Supervision means the continuous presence of another person for the purpose of ensuring your safety.
• ✓Yes: “Assistance” means physical intervention by another person. Assistance to wash your hair or your body below the waist is descriptor d, to get in or out of a bath or shower is descriptor e, and to wash your body between the shoulders and waist is descriptor f. “Bathe” includes getting into or out of an unadapted bath or shower.

Maximum 8 points. The points for the activity come from the one descriptor that applies under regulation 7.

What actually scores

• ✓Yes: “Toilet needs” means getting on and off an unadapted toilet, evacuating the bladder and bowel, and cleaning yourself afterwards.
• ✓Yes: A commode, raised toilet seat, bottom wiper, incontinence pads or a stoma bag can be an aid, descriptor b.
• ✓Yes: Needing physical help to get on or off the toilet or to clean yourself is assistance, descriptor d.
• ✓Yes: Needing assistance to manage incontinence of either bladder or bowel is descriptor e, and of both bladder and bowel is descriptor f. “Manage incontinence” means managing involuntary evacuation of the bowel or bladder, including using a collecting device or self-catheterisation, and cleaning oneself afterwards.

Maximum 8 points. The points for the activity come from the one descriptor that applies under regulation 7.

What actually scores

• ✓Yes: Button hooks and sock aids are examples of aids, descriptor b. “Dress and undress” includes putting on and taking off socks and shoes.
• ✓Yes: Needing prompting to dress or undress, or prompting or assistance to choose appropriate clothing, scores descriptor c.
• ✓Yes: Physical help with your lower body scores descriptor d; help with your upper body scores e.

Maximum 12 points. The points for the activity come from the one descriptor that applies under regulation 7.

What actually scores

• ✓Yes: Basic verbal information means information in your native language conveyed verbally in a simple sentence. Complex verbal information means information conveyed verbally in either more than one sentence or one complicated sentence.
• ✓Yes: Needing a hearing aid to hear to an acceptable standard, or an electro larynx to speak, is descriptor b (2 points).
• ✓Yes: “Communication support” means support from a person trained or experienced in communicating with people with specific communication needs. DWP's guide says this can be someone directly experienced in communicating with you, for example a family member or carer.
• ✓Yes: This is the only daily living activity with a 12-point descriptor, so in principle it can reach the enhanced threshold on its own.

Maximum 8 points. The points for the activity come from the one descriptor that applies under regulation 7.

What actually scores

• ✓Yes: Aids such as screen magnification indoors or a portable magnifying glass outdoors come under descriptor b.
• ✓Yes: Needing another person to explain written information is prompting, descriptor c (complex) or d (basic).
• ✓Yes: Basic written information means signs, symbols and dates written or printed in standard size text in your native language, and complex written information means more than one sentence of written or printed standard size text.

• ✗No: Descriptor b does not count spectacles or contact lenses as the aid or appliance
• ✗No: “Read” does not include reading Braille

Maximum 8 points. The points for the activity come from the one descriptor that applies under regulation 7.

What actually scores

• ✓Yes: “Engage socially” means interacting with others in a contextually and socially appropriate manner, understanding body language and establishing relationships.
• ✓Yes: Needing reminders or encouragement to engage is prompting, descriptor b.
• ✓Yes: “Social support” (descriptor c, 4 points) is help from someone trained or experienced in assisting people to engage in social situations. DWP's assessment guide says the other person may be a friend or family member, but a close and comforting relationship without that training or experience is not sufficient.
• ✓Yes: Descriptor d applies where engaging causes overwhelming psychological distress, or causes the claimant to exhibit behaviour which would result in a substantial risk of harm to the claimant or another person.

Maximum 6 points. The points for the activity come from the one descriptor that applies under regulation 7.

What actually scores

• ✓Yes: “Complex budgeting” means calculating household and personal budgets, managing and paying bills and planning future purchases.
• ✓Yes: “Simple budgeting” means calculating the cost of goods and the change required after a purchase.
• ✓Yes: Needing prompting or assistance with complex budgeting decisions scores 2 points (descriptor b), with simple budgeting decisions 4 points (descriptor c), and being unable to make any budgeting decisions at all scores 6 points (descriptor d).

Maximum 12 points. The points for the activity come from the one descriptor that applies under regulation 7.

What actually scores

• ✓Yes: DWP's assessment guide says this activity is designed for limitations on mobility from mental health, cognitive and sensory impairments, while activity 12, moving around, is generally designed for limitations from physical problems.
• ✓Yes: “Psychological distress” has a legal meaning: distress related to an enduring mental health condition or an intellectual or cognitive impairment. Descriptors b and e name overwhelming psychological distress directly, but it is not confined to them. The Upper Tribunal decided in MH v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (PIP) [2016] UKUT 531 (AAC) that it is also relevant to following the route of a journey under descriptors d and f, and DWP changed how it considers overwhelming psychological distress from 28 November 2016.
• ✓Yes: DWP says it is looking again at claims decided on or after 28 November 2016 where it did not award PIP, will write to you with the outcome, and will usually backdate any increase to 28 November 2016, or to the date you started getting PIP if you claimed later.
• ✓Yes: Descriptor c applies if you cannot plan the route of a journey.
• ✓Yes: Descriptor d applies if you cannot follow the route of an unfamiliar journey without another person, assistance dog or orientation aid, and descriptor f if you cannot follow the route of a familiar journey without another person, an assistance dog or an orientation aid. An orientation aid is a specialist aid designed to assist disabled people to follow a route safely.

Maximum 12 points. The points for the activity come from the one descriptor that applies under regulation 7.

What actually scores

• ✓Yes: “Stand” means stand upright with at least one biological foot on the ground, then move.
• ✓Yes: Descriptor e, worth 12 points, applies if you can stand and then move more than 1 metre but no more than 20 metres, either aided or unaided, and descriptor f, also worth 12 points, applies if you cannot, either aided or unaided, stand or move more than 1 metre.
• ✓Yes: Twelve points in the mobility component is enough for severely limited ability to carry out mobility activities (regulation 6).
• ✓Yes: Regulation 4 applies to every distance: you are only assessed as satisfying a descriptor if you can do so safely, to an acceptable standard, repeatedly and within a reasonable time period.

Imagine someone who, on more than half their days:

• Preparing food, needs prompting to cook, descriptor d (2 points)
• Washing and bathing, needs a shower seat and a bath rail, descriptor b (2 points)
• Dressing, needs assistance with the lower body, descriptor d (2 points)
• Engaging with people, needs social support, descriptor c (4 points)
• Daily living total: 2 + 2 + 2 + 4 = 10 points = standard rate Daily Living

• Moving around, can stand and move only 15 metres, descriptor e (12 points)
• Mobility total: 12 points = enhanced rate Mobility

GOV.UK says the form about how your condition affects you can be sent with supporting documents, for example prescription lists, care plans, or information from your doctor or others involved in your care.

• Regulation 7 asks whether a descriptor is satisfied on a day: it is satisfied if it is likely that, if you had been assessed on that day, you would have satisfied it
• Regulation 4 says your ability is assessed as if you were wearing or using any aid or appliance which you could reasonably be expected to wear or use
• For each task the DWP will look at whether you can do it safely, how long it takes you, and whether you need help to do it from a person or using extra equipment
• DWP's assessment guide says the healthcare professional should make suitable comparisons across activities regarding the level of functional ability, and that if a claimant drives a car but says they are unable to complete other activities requiring similar dexterity, the healthcare professional should explore this with the claimant

For step-by-step help with the form itself, see how to fill in the PIP2 form. If you have already been assessed and scored too low, see how to challenge your assessment report and the PIP appeal guide. For the wider picture, see the benefits section.