UK PIP Analysis - Causes

by: E.R. Dalby, Carlos Alegria

Analysis of UK New Claims for Personal Independence Pension (PIP) by Underlying Causes.

Data Sources: UK Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), Office for National Statistics (ONS), NHS vaccination statistics.

December 2023

Navigation to other PIP analysis webpages:

Go to Analysis of PIP Clearances by Body System.

Data:

Country: UK

Source for PIP data (from DWP): Personal Independence Payment statistics.

Stat-Xplore system for DWP data: Stat-Xplore databases

Source for Vaccination data: NHS - COVID-19 vaccinations archive.

Source for Population Estimates (UN - Population division): UN table: Population estimates.

The data available from the DWP PIP program includes disability claim caseload, new registrations, and cases that had been cleared (aka clearances) in that month. “New registrations” data does not provide information on disability type (i.e. disease or condition), but clearance data and total caseload data does provide this information. The only other claimant characteristics provided are sex and 5-year age group.

It should be noted that PIP replaced the UK’s previous Disability Living Allowance (DLA) system in 2013. As such, you may see a sharp increase in cases/claims in the few years following the initiation of PIP, which has been explained as “capacity issues” by the DWP; for this reason, only cases after January 2016 are included in this set of analyses.

A person may be eligible to claim PIP if they are between the ages of 16 to 64 and have a health condition or disability that:

• has affected their daily living or mobility for at least 3 months,
• is likely to continue for at least 9 months (unless terminally ill),
• is a new claim for PIP claimant over the age of 64 if PIP stopped within the previous year and is now claiming for the same condition (or a related complication).

Comment:

The charts below summarise the analyses of monthly or yearly PIP Clearances for New Claims for different age groups and different causes/conditions that lead to the disability claim. Please note that the word "clearance" is used to define a claim for which a decision has been made, and does not indicate whether or not the claim was approved or rejected. Our charts allow individuals, researchers and institutions to visualise the data, and make their own conclusions based upon what they observe. Users can browse the different disability causes and age groups.
Each interactive chart attempts to capture different aspects of the observed change in PIP clearances during the Covid-19 pandemic years. All the data is downloadable and the original data sources are provided. We will endeavour to update our servers as new data becomes available.

It should be noted that a substantial deal of unpredictability should be expected when trying to correlate increases in disability to any particular time period due to the changes in processing times that were occurring throughout the pandemic. According to the DWP:
“Clearance times for normal rules in new claims:

• are currently (October 2023) 14 weeks “end to end” (from registration to a decision being made) and 9 weeks from the AP referral to the decision
• are shorter than the same period a year ago (22 weeks and 16 weeks respectively in January 2022)
• peaked most recently in August 2021 at 26 weeks “end to end” (from registration to a decision being made) and 21 weeks from the AP referral to the decision, partly because claims that had been allowed a longer deadline for return of PIP 2 form during the period late February to late May 2021 were reaching clearance, and partly because priority in some areas was given to claims that had been waiting longer for processing due to COVID-19 disruption.”

Our analysis shows that PIP clearances for new claims increased substantially in 2021 and 2022 when compared to previous periods. When looking at the behavior of underlying cause for disability claim, we observe that some causes rose rapidly from early 2021 while others only started rising sharply from late 2021 or 2022. The detailed analysis of the trends in disability claims by cause could provide important information to researchers in the medical field who want to understand what is occurring in the population.

Conclusions:

• Our analysis of UK PIP clearances from new claims points towards an extraordinary rise in disabilities that started in 2021 and accelerated in 2022. When looking at the yearly rise in total claims we observe that in 2020 there was no significant change from the 2016-2019 average, while in 2021 the number of claims jumped to 99,642 (20.5%) above average and in 2022 it jumped to 372,540 (76.7%) above average. These correspond to changes that represent many standard deviations above normal values.
• At Phinance Technologies we are not doctors and, in particular, not specialists in the different medical fields that underlie the causes for disability claim, so we need help in understanding the full implications of our analysis. We encourage and challenge doctors and medical researchers to use our data in order to understand the phenomenon at hand.
• Even though we suspect that a large culprit for the change in behaviour in new PIP claims are the Covid-19 inoculations, our data shows clearly that other factors might be playing a role, such as the pandemic lockdowns in late 2020 and early 2021.
• When investigating which underlying causes increased in 2021 and 2022, we observe confirmation of the many anecdotes that we experience in daily life in society around us. From increased neuropathies, cardiac failure or aneurisms, to auditory problems and even the strange rapid increase in adult autism, the data has clues to help all health practitioners to provide a better service to their patients.

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Complementary Analysis

Go to Analysis of PIP Clearances by Body System.