By Erica Crompton
If you live with a psychical or mental illness you maybe eligible to claim PIP (also known as Personal Independence Payments) to help with your illness or disability. Even if you work, it’s still a benefit you can claim.
There are 3 stages to claiming PIP:
- Contact the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and fill in the PIP1 form – they can do this for you over the phone
- Fill in the ‘How your disability affects you’ form – you can choose to get a paper form by post or get an email with a link to an online form
- Go to a medical assessment
It can take up to 6 months from when you first contact the DWP to when you get your first payment. If the DWP decide you can get PIP, they’ll pay you the money you should have got from the date you started your claim.
You can’t backdate PIP – this means you won’t get any money for time before you made your claim.
You can start your claim by calling 0800 917 2222 or using textphone on 0800 917 7777.
Call Relay UK if you cannot hear or speak on the phone on 18001 then 0800 917 2222.
British Sign Language (BSL) video replay service if you’re on a computer.
Finally, the number for if you’re calling from abroad is +44 191 218 7766.
Lines are open from Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm GMT.
- For more information or to start your claim visit www.gov.uk/pip/how-to-claim
