How do patients sign up for Anima?

When you start using Anima, you can contact patients directly from your Anima dashboard by clicking ‘Contact patients’ in the left-hand menu. When you send a message to a patient, they will be sent a link to Anima where they can sign up for an account if it is their first time using Anima.


Patients will be asked to create an account using their email address and password, and to confirm their name, mobile number, NHS number and postcode so we can cross-check that they are verified at your practice.


Patients can also be directed to sign up for Anima using several methods depending on what your practice has chosen:


A banner on the practice website
A text message (sent to all patients or specific patient cohorts)
The practice’s automated phone message
Physical materials distributed at the practice e.g. posters, leaflets, presentations displayed in practices

How do I know that requests are only from patients registered at our practice?

Anima will cross-check the information that patients submit when they register for an Anima account against the NHS personal demographics service (PDS), to verify that the patient is registered at your practice.

For patients that we’re not able to verify (because, for example, they have signed up to Anima with a different name to the one they are registered under at the practice), these patients will appear on the patient verification screen (accessed from your left-hand menu), where practice staff can manually accept or reject unverified patients.

Updated on: 16/08/2023