Late November 2019

The death of Christian Wilcox, a few days before he is due to attend an appeal tribunal into DWP’s decision to remove his personal independence payment (PIP).

What: Christian Wilcox dies from suicide, a few days before he is due to attend an appeal tribunal into DWP’s decision to remove his PIP. He takes his own life after describing on social media how a paramedic had ignored the “sheer amount of pain” he was in during a face-to-face assessment, leading DWP to remove his benefits and plunge him into poverty. He had schizophrenia and a physical impairment, and he had written online over the course of several months about how the lengthy process of reassessing his eligibility for PIP was causing him significant mental distress. He is believed to have died in late November, a few days before he was due to attend an appeal tribunal into DWP’s decision to remove his PIP. His last Facebook post was on 22 November, five days before the tribunal hearing. His body was not discovered until about six weeks after he took his own life in his flat in Croydon, south London.

Why significant: Another death linked to the PIP assessment system and continuing concerns about the accuracy of PIP assessments.