PIP activity 2: Eating and drinking
Eating and drinking is activity 2 of the 12 PIP activities, and counts towards the daily living component. Cutting food, getting food to your mouth, chewing and swallowing. Here’s what it covers, the descriptors and the points each one scores, and what assessors look for.
What this activity looks at
Whether you can eat and drink: cutting up food, getting it to your mouth, chewing and swallowing. It also covers tube feeding.
It doesn’t cover: How healthy or nutritious your diet is. What you choose to eat doesn’t affect the score.
Descriptors and points
The assessor picks the one descriptor that best fits you on most days. Only the highest-scoring descriptor that applies counts; points aren’t added up within an activity.
| Descriptor | What it means | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 2A | I can eat and drink unaided | 0 |
| 2B | I need an aid, supervision or assistance to cut up food | 2 |
| 2C | I need a therapeutic source (e.g. tube feeding) but manage it unaided | 2 |
| 2D | I need prompting to eat or drink | 4 |
| 2E | I need assistance to manage a therapeutic source | 6 |
| 2F | I cannot get food to my mouth and need someone to feed me | 10 |
What the assessor takes into account
- If you’re at risk of choking, you need supervision, which scores 2B.
- A tremor that regularly makes you spill food or drink may mean you need an aid (2B).
- Needing prompting to eat applies to things like cognitive impairment, severe depression, dementia or an eating disorder. It doesn’t cover lifestyle choices.
- Obesity on its own, without a cognitive impairment, doesn’t score for needing prompting about portion sizes.
How to describe this on your form
- Describe your worst days, not your best or average days. A descriptor applies if it’s true on more than half of days, and that includes conditions that vary or come in flare-ups.
- An activity only counts as something you can do if you can do it safely, repeatedly, to an acceptable standard, and in a reasonable time (no more than twice as long as someone without your condition). If any of these isn’t true on most days, say so and explain why.
- Be specific. Give distances, how long things take, how often problems happen, and examples of things that have gone wrong.
- Name any help you need using the words the DWP uses: supervision, prompting, assistance, or aids and appliances. “My partner helps me” is too vague; say what they do and why.
- Describe what your condition stops you doing, not just its name. Assessors score how your condition affects you, not the diagnosis.
- Avoid phrases like “I manage”, “I cope”, “I try my best” or “I sometimes have difficulty”. They suggest you can do the activity, and can cost you points.
How points turn into an award
Your points from activities 1 to 10 are added together for the daily living component.
- 8 to 11 points: standard rate, £73.90 a week
- 12 points or more: enhanced rate, £110.40 a week
2026/27 rates. Estimate your points across all 12 activities.
Try it free: free PIP sample answer
Choose “Eating and drinking”, describe your difficulty in your own words, and see a sample answer written the way assessors score it.
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