Background: Agoraphobia is disabling and clients find it hard to access effective treatment. Aims: This paper describes the development of an inexpensive service, delivered by trained volunteers in or near the client's own home. Method: We describe the development of the service, including selection, training and supervision. Outcomes were evaluated over 5 years, and compared with those available from the local psychology service. Results: Effect sizes on all measures were high. Benchmarking indicated that results on comparable measures were not significantly different from the local psychology service. As in many previous studies drop-out rate was fairly high. Conclusions: This model worked well, and was inexpensive and effective. Further research on long term outcome and methods of enhancing engagement is needed.
