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Guardian accounts: a parent or legal guardian in the portal

How to link a parent, a legal guardian or another adult to a patient card, and what such a guardian can do in the Patient Portal.

Required permissions:
Clinic AdminPractitioner
Reviewed: 2026-08-24

Linking a guardian gives an adult portal access on somebody else's card — a child's, or an adult dependant's. The guardian books appointments, fills in forms, writes messages and signs consents on the dependant's behalf.

A link always has an end date. There is no open-ended access.

How to do it

01

Fill in the patient's date of birth

Without a date of birth Heltio cannot compute when access ends and refuses to link: Fill in the patient's date of birth first to link a guardian.

02

Link, or invite

On the patient card open the Guardians tab.

  • Link guardian — when the guardian already has a Heltio account. You give their email, the relation and a date in the Access valid until field.
  • Invite guardian — when there is no account yet. Heltio sends an emailed invitation; until it is accepted the entry sits under Pending invitations with an Invitation expires date.

If you type an address with no account into the link form, you get No Heltio account found with this email address. and a Send an email invitation button that switches you to the other route.

03

Choose the relation — it decides the end date

RelationWho it applies toAccess valid until
Parenta minor patient onlydefaults to their 18th birthday; you may set an earlier date, a later one is refused
Legal guardiana minor patient onlyas above
Other adultan adult patient toothe date is mandatory, at most 10 years from today
04

What the guardian sees

The guardian signs in to their own account. Above the portal content sits a Viewing as guardian: … banner with a Back to my account button, and in the menu Switch patient with a list holding My account and every Dependant along with the relation.

The guardian works across the dependant's whole portal: appointments, forms, messages, exercise program, wallet. A consent they sign is marked signed by guardian and shows their name and relation.

05

Revoke access

The Revoke button on a list entry ends the link: The guardian will lose access to the patient portal within a minute. You can undo this by linking the guardian again. An invitation that has not yet been accepted is revoked separately.

The list shows the state of every link: Active, Expired, Revoked, Pending.

When something doesn't work

Warning

Fill in the patient's date of birth first to link a guardian.

What this means: The patient card has no date of birth, so the end of access cannot be worked out.

What to do: Fill the date of birth into the patient details and go back to the **Guardians** tab.
Info

No Heltio account found with this email address.

What this means: The address belongs to no account — the guardian has not registered yet.

What to do: Click **Send an email invitation**. The link comes into being when the invitation is accepted.
Warning

This guardian is already linked to the patient.

What this means: An active link with that address already exists.

What to do: If the point was to extend access, change the date on the existing entry instead of creating a second one.
Warning

An active invitation for this email already exists.

What this means: A previous invitation to this address has neither been accepted nor expired.

What to do: Ask the guardian to look for the message. If it is gone, revoke the pending invitation and send a new one.
Info

An account with this email already exists — link the guardian directly.

What this means: An attempt to invite an address that already has a Heltio account.

What to do: Use **Link guardian** instead of an invitation — the link works straight away.
Warning

Could not save. Please try again.

What this means: A catch-all message. The most common real cause is a rejected date: in the past, past the 18th birthday on a parent or legal-guardian relation, more than 10 years out on another adult, or empty on another adult. A parent link to a patient who is already 18 is refused too.

What to do: Check the **Access valid until** field against the rules in the table above. For an adult patient use the **Other adult** relation.
Info

Guardian access has expired or was revoked. Your own view was restored.

What this means: The guardian was working in the dependant's portal when the link ended.

What to do: Heltio switches them back to their own account. To restore access, link the guardian again with a new date.

Who has access

Clinic Admin Practitioner

Linking, inviting, changing a date and revoking need the right to edit patient data — the owner, the admin, a practitioner, a coordinator, a senior physiotherapist and a trainee. Reception cannot do it, though they can see the guardian list.

A guardian's visits to the dependant's data are recorded in the audit log, including refusals of access. The dependant's access history therefore shows who read their data and when.

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