Personal Independence Payment (PIP) toolkit

Questions relevant to sight loss

The descriptors (legal tests) are:

Needs prompting to be able to engage with other people.

Points: 2

Needs social support to be able to engage with other people.

Points: 4

More information to help you answer the questions

Your ability to engage with other people means to interact face-to-face in a contextually and socially appropriate manner, understand body language and establish relationships.

Social support means support from a person trained or experienced in assisting people to engage in social situations, or someone directly experienced in supporting the claimant themselves (for example a family member), who can compensate for limited ability to understand and respond to body language, other social cues and assist social integration.

When considering whether you can engage with others, consideration should be given to whether you can engage with people generally, not just those people you know well.

Top tips

When answering the questions think about:

• Do you need encouragement to interact with other people?
• Do you need someone else to be present so that you can interact with people?
• Do you have problems identifying or recognising other people, perhaps in the street, in a shop, on public transport or in a social situation/gathering e.g. pub or restaurant? How close must you be to be able to recognise people? Give examples of when you failed to recognise someone familiar to you
• Do you need someone to tell you who is talking and if they are talking to you?
• Do you need someone to verbally tell you that they would like to shake your hand as a greeting?
• Do you need someone to tell you when it is your turn in the queue in a public place, for example speaking to someone at the bank?
• Do you need prompts to let you know when to interject in a conversation?
• Do you need someone to introduce you to other people in the room if you cannot recognise people’s faces?
• Do you need someone to describe people’s expressions, body language and behaviour?
• Do you need someone to tell you when other people have moved away and left a group conversation?
• Do you need other people to use your name during group conversation to let you know that they are talking to you?

Put your answers in the section called “Extra information”.