Anita Eileen Carey was an English actress. She appeared in British television programmes from the 1970s, with her first notable appearances including roles in Beryl's Lot, The History of Mr. Polly and The Spoils of War. She then played Joyce Smedley in the ITV soap opera Coronation Street from 1996 to 1997. After further appearances in various series, she joined the cast of the BBC soap opera Doctors as Vivien March in 2007. She stayed in the role for two years, during which her character was involved in a rape scene that won her the British Soap Award for Best Dramatic Performance in 2009.

Doctors is a British medical soap opera, first broadcast on BBC One on 26 March 2000. Filmed in Birmingham and set in the fictional West Midlands town of Letherbridge, the soap follows the lives of the staff of both an NHS doctor's surgery and a university campus surgery, as well as the lives of their families and friends. Initially, only 41 episodes of the programme were ordered, but due to the positive reception, the BBC ordered it as a continuing soap opera. Doctors was filmed at the Pebble Mill Studios until 2004; production then relocated to the BBC Drama Village, where it will film until 2024. Episodes are filmed three months prior to transmission. The soap is typically broadcast on weekdays at 1:45 pm on BBC One, as well as having classic episodes broadcast on Drama. It takes three annual transmission breaks across the year: at Easter, during the summer and at Christmas.