WHY WE’RE HOLDING A ROUNDTABLE ON THE DWP’S PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE PAYMENT REVIEW
The Department for Work and Pensions is reviewing Personal Independence Payment (PIP) – a benefit that shapes the daily lives of millions of disabled people across the UK. Decisions made in this review will affect how people can pay their bills, access support, move around their communities, and live with dignity. That is why we are bringing people together for a roundtable discussion, and why the voices in the room matter so much. People’s Voice Media’s Head of Partnerships and Practice, Isaac Samuels, tells us why it’s vital that we create this space.
Lived Experience Roundtable on PIP
What is it?
On 5th May 2026 at 6pm, People’s Voice Media are hosting a 90-minute online roundtable on PIP, as a space for people to share their stories, insights, and reflections. This will help shape a response to the current Personal Independence Payment (PIP) Review led by the Department for Work and Pensions.
This session is part of the wider national Call for Evidence, and it’s really important that the voices of people who live with the realities of PIP are centred, heard, and valued.
About the space
At People’s Voice Media, storytelling is at the heart of how we create change. This space will be grounded in that, offering a supportive environment to share real experiences of PIP, including:
- What’s working and what isn’t
- Experiences of applying, assessments, and decisions
- Where the system feels unfair or inconsistent
- How experiences differ across communities and intersecting identities
- What a more human, fair, and dignified system could look like
Why We’re Holding This Space
Reviews of this scale are too often shaped by data points, policy papers, and assumptions about what disabled people need – rather than real experiences of navigating the system. We wanted to create a space where that balance is corrected. We want people who have actually applied for PIP, been assessed for PIP, appealed decisions, waited anxiously for letters, and built their lives around this support to be able to speak honestly and be heard.
The roundtable is a focused conversation around two simple but powerful questions: What is working well? What is not working so well? From small practical improvements to bigger structural concerns, every contribution helps build a clearer, more truthful picture of how PIP is functioning today.
The insights, stories, and recommendations that come out of the discussion will be carefully captured and turned into a collective lived experience response to the government’s PIP review. We will also share key themes back with participants, partner organisations, and decision-makers who can act on them.
What PIP Enables Me to Do
I want to speak honestly for a moment, because this isn’t just a policy conversation for me – it’s my life. As a disabled person living with mental health conditions, PIP is not a luxury or an extra. It is one of the quiet, essential things that makes a decent life possible. Without it, the gap between simply surviving and actually living becomes very wide.
On a practical level, PIP helps me cover the real costs of being disabled – costs that people outside this experience often don’t see. It helps me pay for taxis on days when public transport is too overwhelming, or when leaving the house at all takes everything I’ve got. It helps me keep my home warm when my body and mind need stability. It helps me buy the food that supports my medication and my energy levels. It helps me pay for the little things – noise-cancelling headphones, a weighted blanket, the right kind of lighting – that make the difference between a manageable day and a day lost to sensory overload or a mental health dip.
But the impact goes far beyond receipts and bills. PIP gives me the breathing room to look after my mental health. It means I can attend my therapy appointments without having to choose between them and my electricity bill. It means I can say no to situations that would push me into crisis, because I am not financially forced to say yes. It means I can rest when I need to rest, instead of pushing my body and mind past the point of collapse and ending up worse off.
PIP also enables me to contribute. That part matters to me. Because I have this support, I can do the work I do: advocacy, storytelling, showing up for my community. I can hold down relationships. I can be a good friend, a present family member, a reliable colleague on the days I’m well. People often frame disability benefits as something that holds people back. For me, the truth is the opposite: PIP is what makes participation possible. It is the scaffolding that lets me show up in the world.
Living with a mental health condition alongside a disability means my needs shift. Some weeks I manage well. Other weeks, everything is harder. PIP gives me the stability to weather those shifts without falling off a cliff. It gives me dignity on my hardest days and independence on my best days. It means I don’t have to justify my existence every time my symptoms flare up.
This is the reality I want the review to understand. PIP isn’t just a payment – it is access. It is safety. It is the difference between being pushed to the edges of society and being able to take my place within it. When PIP works, it works quietly in the background, enabling people like me to build a better life. When it doesn’t, the consequences are serious – not just financially, but physically, emotionally, and psychologically.
That is why my voice, and the voices of others like me, need to be in this review.
Why Lived Experience Voices Are So Important
Lived experience is expertise. No one understands the impact of a policy better than the people who live with its consequences every day. When disabled people are at the centre of conversations about disability benefits, policy becomes sharper, fairer, and more effective. Decisions made without that expertise tend to miss the mark, creating systems that are harder to navigate, more stressful to engage with, and less responsive to real need.
Centering lived experience is also a matter of principle. “Nothing about us without us” should be the minimum standard. If the government is serious about improving PIP, then the people who rely on it must be genuinely heard, not just consulted as an afterthought.
What to Expect
The space will be rooted in lived experience storytelling, and offer different ways to contribute. Your insights will directly inform a collective lived experience response to the review.
Date: Tuesday 5 May
Time: 6:00pm – 7:30pm
Location: Online (joining link will be sent once you confirm your place)
How to join: Please email issac@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk with any questions, or to confirm you’d like to attend, and we’ll send over the joining link and any final details.
If you have any access needs or would prefer to contribute in a different way, please just let us know. We’ll make sure the space works for you.
We are grateful to everyone who is showing up to share their story. Your voice will shape what we take to government – and that is exactly how it should be.