WCA Activity 15: Getting About

Activity 15 is one of the 17 activities in the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), the test that decides whether you have Limited Capability for Work for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) or Universal Credit. It is called "getting about", and it is one of the mental and cognitive activities. It measures whether a cognitive impairment or mental disorder - severe anxiety, panic disorder, agoraphobia, PTSD and the like - stops you leaving home and reaching places.

The single most important thing to understand about Activity 15 is what it is not: it is not about physical walking. Whether your legs can carry you a certain distance is assessed under Activity 1, mobilising. Activity 15 asks a different question - whether fear, distress or disorientation stops you getting to a place at all, even if you are physically able to walk there. This guide explains exactly what the descriptors say, how to score points on Activity 15, the conditions that commonly affect it, and how it adds up with the rest of the assessment towards the 15-point threshold for Limited Capability for Work.

What Activity 15 actually measures

Activity 15 looks at whether you can get to places outside your home, and whether you can do so alone or only when accompanied by another person. It distinguishes between familiar places (somewhere you know, such as a local shop or your GP surgery) and unfamiliar places (somewhere new). The harder it is to get even to a familiar place, and the more you depend on someone going with you, the higher you score.

This is a purely mental and cognitive activity. The reason you cannot get about must be a cognitive impairment or mental disorder - for example, panic attacks when you try to leave the house, overwhelming anxiety on public transport, or disorientation that means you get lost. If the problem is physical pain or breathlessness on walking, that belongs under mobilising instead. Activity 15 is where the disabling effect of agoraphobia and severe anxiety is recognised.

The Activity 15 descriptors and their exact point values

These are the verbatim descriptors from Schedule 2 of the Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2013. Only the single highest-scoring descriptor that applies to you counts towards your total.

In plain English:

• 15 points - You cannot get to any familiar place outside your home at all. This is the most severe descriptor and reflects effectively being housebound by your mental health.
• 9 points - You can only get to a familiar place if someone goes with you. You cannot make even a known journey alone.
• 6 points - You can manage familiar places alone, but you cannot get to an unfamiliar place without being accompanied. New or unknown destinations trigger anxiety or disorientation you cannot face alone.

A worked example: how a real difficulty maps to points

Points only make sense when you see how an everyday difficulty turns into a specific descriptor. Here is a composite example built from the kind of facts an assessor weighs. The figures are not invented - they are the descriptor points written into Schedule 2.

Imagine someone with panic disorder and agoraphobia. They can walk perfectly well, so mobilising is not their problem. But the moment they step outside alone, they feel a panic attack building: racing heart, dizziness, a conviction they will collapse. They can reach the corner shop they know well only if their partner comes too. They have not been to anywhere new on their own in over a year, and the thought of an unfamiliar place brings on anticipatory panic for days beforehand.

• Activity 15: because they cannot get even to a familiar place without being accompanied, the 9-point descriptor fits. If they could not get to any familiar place at all, even with someone, the 15-point descriptor would apply. If familiar places alone were manageable but unfamiliar ones were not, the 6-point descriptor would apply. Note that even the 9-point descriptor brings them more than halfway to the 15-point threshold on a single activity.
• How it combines: the same person's anxiety is likely to score on other mental activities too, such as Activity 16 (coping with social engagement) and Activity 14 (coping with change). Mental and physical descriptors are added together across all 17 activities, so Activity 15 plus one neighbouring descriptor can easily reach 15 points.

The reliability test applied to Activity 15

The single most important idea in the whole WCA is that you must be able to do an activity reliably, repeatedly, safely, in a reasonable time, and the majority of the time. An assessor is not asking whether you could force yourself out of the door once. They are asking whether you could travel to a job and back, day after day.

• Reliably and the majority of the time. If you can only leave home on a minority of days, or only when accompanied, then for the majority of the time you cannot get about reliably. This is the "more than half the days" rule applied to leaving the house.
• Repeatedly. Managing one outing that leaves you exhausted and panicky for the rest of the day is not the same as making the same journey repeatedly across a working week.
• In a reasonable time. If it takes hours of preparation, multiple failed attempts, or a long recovery to manage a short trip, you are not getting about in a reasonable time.

When you write your form, attach this test to each difficulty. Do not just say "I struggle to go out". Say "I cannot get to a familiar place on my own because of panic attacks, and on most days I cannot leave home without my partner". That phrasing speaks the assessment's own language.

Which conditions commonly score on Activity 15

Any condition that triggers overwhelming anxiety, panic or disorientation when leaving home can affect this activity. The most common are:

• Agoraphobia and panic disorder - the fear of being unable to escape or of having a panic attack outside is the textbook fit for this activity; see our guide to ESA for anxiety.
• PTSD - hypervigilance and the risk of triggers outside the home can make travel intolerable; see ESA for PTSD.
• Severe depression - loss of motivation and overwhelming anxiety can leave someone effectively housebound; see ESA for depression.
• Autism - sensory overload and a need for predictability can make unfamiliar journeys impossible alone; see ESA for autism.
• OCD - contamination fears or compulsions can prevent travel without support; see ESA for OCD.
• Dementia and brain injury - disorientation and getting lost can mean a person cannot reach even familiar places safely; see ESA for dementia.

Evidence to gather

Activity 15 is almost invisible in a short consultation, especially a telephone one, because no assessor can watch you try and fail to leave home over a typical week. That makes written evidence and your own account decisive. Build it in layers.

• An outings diary. Over a typical month, record each time you left home: where you went, whether you went alone or accompanied, how you felt, and any trips you cancelled because of anxiety. Patterns are far more convincing than a single sentence on a form.
• Your GP, psychiatrist or mental health team. A letter confirming a diagnosis of agoraphobia, panic disorder, PTSD or severe anxiety, and describing how it affects your ability to leave home, carries real weight.
• Your medication list. Name your medication and any side effects relevant to anxiety or alertness.
• A care or support plan. If a support worker or family member regularly accompanies you to appointments, the existence of that support is itself evidence you cannot get about alone.
• A witness statement. The person who usually accompanies you can describe exactly what happens when you try to go out without them.

Send copies, never originals, and keep a list of everything you submit. Our ESA evidence checklist sets out how to assemble all of this.

Common mistakes on Activity 15

• Treating it as physical mobility. The most common error by far. Walking distance belongs under Activity 1, mobilising. Activity 15 is about anxiety, panic and disorientation, not about your legs.
• Saying "I can go out". If you can only go out when accompanied, or only on a minority of days, that is not "being able to get about" for assessment purposes. Spell out the help you need and how rarely you manage alone.
• Forgetting the familiar versus unfamiliar distinction. Many people can reach the local shop but not somewhere new. The descriptors reward that distinction with different points, so describe both.
• Leaving out the consequences. Do not just say you feel anxious. Say what happens: the panic attacks, the trips abandoned at the door, the days you do not leave home at all.
• Ignoring the reliability test. Could you travel to and from a job every day, repeatedly, in a reasonable time? If not, say so explicitly.

How Activity 15 combines with other activities

You qualify for Limited Capability for Work if you score 15 points in total across the 17 activities, and physical and mental descriptors are added together. Activity 15 rarely sits alone. A person whose anxiety stops them getting about is usually affected on neighbouring mental activities too:

• Activity 16 (coping with social engagement) - if contact with others causes significant distress.
• Activity 14 (coping with change) - if unexpected change derails you.
• Activity 13 (initiating and completing personal action) - if impaired mental function stops you starting and finishing tasks.
• Activity 11 (learning tasks) - if you cannot learn how to do a moderately complex task.

A 9-point Activity 15 descriptor plus a 6-point descriptor on another activity already reaches the 15-point threshold. For a fuller picture of how points stack, see our guides on how many points you need for ESA and the WCA descriptors explained.

The Support Group and the substantial-risk route

Unlike some mental activities, getting about is not one of the activities listed in Schedule 3, the part of the rules that automatically places you in the Support Group on ESA (the LCWRA group on Universal Credit). That does not make it unimportant: its points still count towards the 15-point Limited Capability for Work threshold, and the related activities that often go with it, such as coping with social engagement, can themselves be Schedule 3 descriptors. See our guide on how to qualify for the Support Group.

The most relevant route to the Support Group for someone whose main problem is getting about is the substantial-risk rule. If being found capable of work-related activity - which would require you to leave home, travel and attend appointments - would put your mental health at substantial risk, you can be treated as having Limited Capability for Work-Related Activity on those grounds alone, even without meeting a Schedule 3 descriptor.

The consultation and challenging a decision

Most assessments are now carried out by telephone or as a paper-based review of your form and evidence, although a face-to-face appointment is still possible. There is a particular irony here: a person who cannot leave home for a face-to-face assessment is, by that very fact, demonstrating the difficulty Activity 15 measures. If you are asked to attend in person and cannot, say why, and ask for a telephone or paper assessment. Whatever the format, answer for your typical and worst days, not your best one. See what to say at your WCA assessment.

If the decision is wrong, you can challenge it in two stages. First, Mandatory Reconsideration: ask the DWP to look again, normally within one month, setting out which descriptors you believe you meet and why. If that does not fix it, you can appeal to the First-tier Tribunal, an independent panel that includes a doctor. Many mental-health decisions are overturned at tribunal because a panel can take the time to understand impairments that a brief consultation misses. See our Mandatory Reconsideration guide and ESA tribunal guide.

How much could your ESA be worth?

The amount depends on whether you reach the 15-point threshold for Limited Capability for Work, and whether you qualify for the Support Group (LCWRA). The Support Group pays around £145.90 a week and the Work-Related Activity Group around £95.55 a week. As a rough starting point, enter your main condition below to see the kind of figure a successful claim can reach. It is only an estimate - your real award depends on how the WCA scores your difficulties across the 17 activities.

For the official figures, see our free WCA points calculator and what ESA is and how much it pays.

Official sources

This guide reflects the official Work Capability Assessment rules. For the source material, see:

• GOV.UK - Employment and Support Allowance
• GOV.UK - Health conditions, disability and Universal Credit
• The Employment and Support Allowance Regulations 2013 (Schedule 2 - WCA descriptors)
• Citizens Advice - Employment and Support Allowance

Guidance only, not legal advice. Rules can change - always check GOV.UK for the latest.

Frequently Asked Questions