MS Society & PIP

On Wednesday 25th of October, Alex Bennett-Clemmow and Esra Balkas from the Humankind Research team had the honour of joining the MS Society at the House of Commons to present their report on the inadequacies of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for people with multiple sclerosis, on the 10th anniversary of the benefit being introduced.

Prior to the event, the Humankind Research team undertook exploratory qualitative research on behalf of the MS Society, focusing on the positive impacts receiving PIP can have for people with MS. This research then fed into a larger report by the MS Society evaluating where PIP is now, its difficulties, positive impacts, and how to change it for the better in the future.

With over 40 MPs and their associates joining for the breakfast drop-in session, the MS Society can safely call the event a massive success! We were joined by two contributors to the report with lived experience of MS and the PIP benefit system, including Shereena (pictured center) who we had the pleasure of speaking with through our research. She has gone on to do interviews for news organisations such as the BBC, sharing her story and how she hopes PIP will change with the push from this campaign.

You can read the final report here, including case studies of participants from our qualitative research. 

It has been our immense privilege to work on this report alongside the MS Society and contribute to their campaign to fix the PIP system.