Can you get Adult Disability Payment for agoraphobia in Scotland? Yes, and it is often a stronger claim than people expect, because one of the twelve activities ADP scores is built around exactly the difficulty agoraphobia creates. The mobility component is not only about walking. Half of it is about planning and following a journey, and someone who cannot leave the house alone, or cannot go anywhere unfamiliar without overwhelming distress, is describing that activity precisely. This guide explains where agoraphobia scores, why panic attacks belong on the form, and how to describe a condition that has quietly shrunk your world.
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Try one activity free →The mobility component is not just about walking
Start here, because it is the single most valuable thing to understand and the most commonly missed.
ADP has two mobility activities. One is about physically moving around, and if your legs work, it will not score for you. The other is about planning and following a journey, and it is squarely aimed at the difficulties caused by mental health conditions, learning disability and cognitive impairment.
That activity asks whether you can plan a route, whether you can follow it, whether you need another person with you, and whether overwhelming psychological distress stops you undertaking a journey at all. For someone with agoraphobia the honest answers to those questions are often the strongest part of the whole application.
Be specific about what you cannot do. Going only to places you know. Needing someone with you every time. Being unable to use buses or trains. Only leaving at particular times of day when it is quiet. Turning back partway. Not having left the house at all for a period of weeks or months. Each of those is a different level of difficulty and they score differently.
Which other activities agoraphobia tends to reach
ADP scores the effect of a condition across 12 everyday activities, ten for daily living and two for mobility. Agoraphobia rarely stops at the front door.
Engaging with other people face to face
The second most important activity for this condition. If you cannot be around people you do not know, need someone with you to manage social contact, or experience overwhelming distress from face to face interaction, that belongs here. Withdrawing from friends and family counts as much as avoiding strangers.
Preparing food and taking nutrition
The link is indirect but real. If you cannot get to a shop, cannot accept a delivery from someone at the door, or your eating has become erratic because of anxiety, say so. Many people with agoraphobia live on whatever can be ordered and left on a doorstep.
Managing treatment and monitoring your health
Missing GP appointments, being unable to collect prescriptions, avoiding dental and hospital appointments and needing prompting to take medication are all extremely common and all belong here. If someone else collects your medication, that is help you need.
Washing, bathing and dressing
Where agoraphobia sits alongside depression, self care often lapses. Needing prompting or encouragement to wash or dress is scored in the same way as needing physical help, and people consistently leave this out because they can physically do it.
Making budgeting decisions
If anxiety stops you dealing with money, opening post, going to a bank or managing bills, this activity applies. Unopened letters piling up is a recognisable feature of this condition and worth mentioning plainly.
Prompting and support count as help
This is where mental health claims are most often under scored. The descriptors do not only cover physical help. They cover needing prompting, encouragement or supervision to do something.
So if you can physically walk to a shop but cannot make yourself do it without someone with you, that is a need. If you would not wash for days unless your partner encouraged you, that is a need. If you can only attend an appointment when somebody goes with you, that is a need. Write down what happens when nobody prompts you, because that is what the activity is measuring.
The words that score are not the words you would use
Most people describe agoraphobia in terms of feelings. The form is scored on function: what you cannot do, how often, and what support you need. ADPexpert translates one into the other across all 12 activities. Try one activity free.
Try one activity freeThe reliability rule
You are scored not on whether you can do an activity at all, but on whether you can do it reliably, which means all four of these:
- Safely, in a way unlikely to cause harm to you or anyone else.
- To an acceptable standard, taking account of the impact on you of doing it that way.
- Repeatedly, as often as the activity is reasonably needed.
- Within a reasonable time period, no more than twice as long as someone without your condition would take.
Agoraphobia fails these in ways that are easy to overlook. Managing one appointment a month by forcing yourself through it, then being unable to leave the house for the next three days, is not doing it repeatedly. A journey that takes an hour of preparation and leaves you shaking is not to an acceptable standard. And a panic attack on a station platform or at a road crossing is a genuine safety point. Our guide to the reliability criteria covers this in full.
Describe the worst, not the exception
The most common mistake in agoraphobia claims is describing the one thing you managed rather than the pattern you live with. People write "I got to my sister's wedding" because it feels dishonest to leave it out. Include it, but put it in context: what it took to do it, who came with you, and what the following week looked like.
The rules ask what you can do reliably on more than half the days, so an exceptional effort on one day does not describe your position. If you managed the supermarket once in three months, the answer to whether you can do the weekly shop is still no.
Panic attacks belong on the form
Say how often they happen, what triggers them, how long they last and what state you are in afterwards. If they stop you doing something, name the activity they stop.
Anticipatory anxiety matters too, and it is frequently omitted because it happens before anything has gone wrong. If you cannot sleep the night before an appointment, or spend three days dreading a journey, that is part of the burden of the activity, not a separate problem.
What most people leave out
- How small your world has become. Not leaving a particular radius, only using one shop, only going out after dark, having a fixed route you cannot deviate from. Describe the boundary rather than saying you go out sometimes.
- What other people absorb. If a partner does every shop, every school run, every appointment and every phone call, list those tasks. Help you receive is evidence of need, not a reason to discount it.
- Physical symptoms. Nausea, shaking, dizziness, chest pain and needing a toilet urgently are part of the condition and can reach activities on their own.
- The cost afterwards. If forcing yourself out means two days in bed, that is a reliability point and belongs beside the thing you managed.
- How long it has lasted. ADP has a 13 week backwards test and a 39 week forwards test, so say how many months or years this has been your position.
- Things you stopped doing. Work given up, a course abandoned, a driving licence unused, friendships lost. Loss of function over time tells the story better than a snapshot.
How the process works in Scotland
The application comes in two parts. Part 1 is short and covers your details, with 14 days to submit it, and it fixes the date your entitlement runs from, so it is worth opening early. Part 2 is the long form describing how your conditions affect the 12 activities, and you have 56 days to return it, with more time on request.
If forms are difficult for you, both parts can be completed over the phone on 0800 182 2222, and you can ask someone to help or to speak on your behalf. There is no published target for a decision: the median from part 2 arriving to determination was 62 working days in April 2026, as our guide to ADP waiting times explains, and entitlement runs from your part 1 date regardless of how long it takes.
Building a case on paper
Most ADP determinations in Scotland are made on the papers, without a consultation, so what you write and what supports it usually decides the outcome. Useful supporting information includes:
- GP records showing diagnosis, medication and how long the condition has persisted.
- Community mental health team or psychiatry letters, if you are under a service.
- Records of therapy, including CBT or exposure work, and whether you were able to attend or had to be seen at home or online. Being unable to attend therapy in person is itself powerful evidence.
- Evidence of missed appointments, since a pattern of non attendance documents the difficulty rather than undermining it.
- A short statement from someone who supports you, setting out what they do: the shopping, the prescriptions, coming with you to appointments.
Social Security Scotland has a duty to help gather supporting information and case managers can request reports directly from professionals you name, so give accurate names and contact details, as our supporting information guide explains. If you have never been referred to mental health services, a GP record of repeated presentations and prescribed medication still carries weight.
If you are asked to a consultation
Most people are not. A consultation happens only where it is the only way to get the information needed, and it is not a medical examination. If you are asked to one and attending in person would be impossible, say so when you are contacted. Consultations can be held by telephone or video, and you can have someone with you.
It is worth being direct about this rather than not turning up. Ringing to explain that you cannot travel is itself consistent with everything on your form, whereas a missed appointment with no explanation is not.
List every condition
ADP is scored on the combined effect of everything you live with. Agoraphobia commonly sits alongside panic disorder, generalised anxiety, depression, PTSD or a physical condition, and each activity is scored on everything affecting it together. Our guides to ADP for anxiety and ADP for mental health conditions cover the wider picture.
If your determination is wrong
Refusals are common: of the 419,690 applications decided by 30 April 2026, 44 per cent were authorised and 53 per cent were denied. Mental health claims are refused more often when the form describes feelings rather than function, so a refusal is frequently about the wording rather than the condition.
You have 42 days to ask for a re-determination and Social Security Scotland has 56 days to look again, with 46 per cent of completed re-determinations allowed. After that you have 31 days to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland, where more than half of decided appeals have been upheld and the panel includes a disability qualified member.
If the tribunal stage worries you, note that appeals can be decided on the papers without you attending, or by telephone or video call from home. Not being able to face a hearing room does not shut you out of the process. Our guide to tribunal waiting times covers the formats, and free representation is available from Citizens Advice Scotland and local welfare rights teams.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you get ADP for agoraphobia in Scotland?
Yes. It is often a stronger claim than people expect, because one of the two mobility activities is about planning and following a journey rather than walking, and that is aimed directly at difficulties like agoraphobia.
Does agoraphobia count for the ADP mobility component?
Yes, through the planning and following a journey activity, which covers needing someone with you and being unable to undertake a journey because of overwhelming distress. Do not leave the mobility section blank because your walking is fine.
Which ADP activities does agoraphobia affect?
Mainly planning and following a journey, and engaging with other people face to face. Often also preparing food, managing treatment and appointments, washing and dressing where prompting is needed, and making budgeting decisions.
Does needing prompting count as help for ADP?
Yes. The descriptors cover prompting, encouragement and supervision, not just physical help. If you can physically do something but will not or cannot without someone prompting you, that is a need worth writing down.
Should I mention the one time I managed to go out?
Include it with context: what it took, who came with you and what the following days were like. One exceptional effort does not describe your usual position, and the rules ask about more than half the days.
What evidence helps an ADP claim for agoraphobia?
GP records of diagnosis and medication, mental health team letters, therapy records including whether you could attend in person, evidence of missed appointments, and a statement from whoever supports you.
Do I have to attend a hearing if I appeal an ADP decision?
No. Appeals can be decided on the papers without you attending, or you can take part by telephone or video from home. You can also bring a supporter or representative, and free representation is available.