[2025] UKUT 153 (AAC)

The question is whether the low pH soap recommended by the appellant’s treating clinicians, which lessens, but does not remove the troubling odour, can be an aid or appliance. As I have said above, under Activity 4(b) a claimant “needs to use an aid or appliance to be able to wash or bathe.” That wording itself points towards the meaning of the Activity as a whole being about the functional aspects of washing and bathing.

The relevant part of the definition in the PIP regulations is that an aid or appliance is “any device which improves, provides or replaces C’s impaired physical or mental function”. Physical is anything connected with a claimant’s bodily function; mental, includes any mental health condition or intellectual or cognitive impairment: MR v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (PIP) [2017] UKUT 86 (AAC).

The body of case law is clear that there must be a connection between the use of an aid and the impaired function. AP, the decision of Judge Markus cited by Mr Kamara was to that effect. It built on a decision of Upper Tribunal Judge Jacobs, CW v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2016] UKUT 197 (AAC); [2016] AACR 44. Upper Tribunal Judge Brunner builds further on that in DA v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2019] UKUT 320 (AAC) (from now, DA).

She considered whether a bottle of sterilised water and wipes used to clean the area after passing urine on the recommendation of Bladder Health UK, was an aid for someone with recurrent urinary tract infections. After asking the question, “What is the impaired function?” she said at [21-32]

In this case, there is no dispute that the bottle with sterilised water was capable of being an aid, whether it was an everyday object or not. The issue was whether it meets the definition of ‘any device which improves, provides or replaces C’s impaired physical or mental function’. The argument identified by Judge Jacobs as the ‘connection argument’ is at the heart of that question.

In this case both the claimant and the Secretary of State submit that the ‘impaired function’ is an impaired bodily function. The various suggestions made in submissions are that the impaired function could be the impaired urinary tract or bladder which is prone to infection, or the impaired immune system, or even the infection itself.

That is an incorrect approach. The function for the purposes of Regulation 2 is the claimant’s impaired physical or mental function which affects her ability to carry out a particular activity. It is not an impaired bodily function considered in the abstract. In some cases, that may not create a difference on the facts, but it is an important distinction which in this and many other cases will be the crux to determining whether an object really is an aid for a particular claimant and a particular activity.