Candour and other consent tools
The difference is what the record can say afterwards.
Eight differences, none of them about screen design. Each changes what is in the record a year later, when somebody asks what this patient was told. It supports your consent discussion; it never replaces it.
The difference that matters most
One of these could be answered by someone who was not listening.
A tool that does not read the tooth and the reason cannot ask about them.
From the practice system
Appointment
Planned treatment
Endodontic treatment
Tooth
LL6 · FDI 36
Diagnosis
Irreversible pulpitis
Appointment
Today, 15:40
Identity, the appointment, the treatment, the tooth and the diagnosis. No notes, no medical history, no radiographs — those are never read.
Procedure-level question
“Root canal treatment can sometimes fail. True or false?”
True of every root canal, on every patient. Answerable without having understood this appointment.
Written from this appointment
“The nerve in your lower left first molar is inflamed and will not settle on its own. What does that mean for waiting?”
Names the tooth, names the reason, and tests the one thing this diagnosis changes — waiting is not an option here.
Why this is the whole argument
A generic question tests reading. A specific one tests understanding.
A patient who passes a generic question has demonstrated that they can read. One who can say why waiting is not an option for this tooth has demonstrated that they understood what is about to happen to them.
Side by side
Eight rows, and only one column is making a claim.
No product is named. No product's current release is something we can speak for.
What the questions are about
- Other consent tools
- The procedure. One question set per treatment, the same for every patient who has it.
- Candour
- This appointment. The tooth and the diagnosis come from your practice system, and the check tests those specifics.
PMS mirror → question plan
Personalisation
- Other consent tools
- At the template. Editing a procedure changes it for everyone who has that procedure.
- Candour
- Per case. The clinician marks what is material to this patient and writes why; that risk is then always asked, and the reasoning is sealed with the answer.
Chairside review → sealed record
Languages
- Other consent tools
- English, or a translated PDF handed over separately from whatever gets recorded.
- Candour
- 6 languages, each an overlay on your own template — so the record is the same shape whichever one was used. A clinician who reads the language approves it first.
Language registry → template translations
Capacity and minors
- Other consent tools
- A signature box, and paper for anything that is not a competent adult.
- Candour
- Routed. Under 13, 13–15 with a Gillick assessment, 16+, the Mental Capacity Act two-stage test, and best-interests decisions recorded as what they are.
Patient record → session route
What the record proves
- Other consent tools
- That a form was signed, and often that a PDF was generated.
- Candour
- What was shown, in which version and language; every answer including the wrong ones; and what was explained again.
Sealed record contents
Whether the record can be quietly edited
- Other consent tools
- It is a row in a database, or a file on a share.
- Candour
- Each record stores the hash of the one before it, so altering one breaks every link after it. Tamper-evident, not tamper-proof.
Hash chain → /demo
What happens in your practice system
- Other consent tools
- A separate archive to remember to look in.
- Candour
- One note back into the patient's notes pointing at the record, where your system has an API that permits it. CSV import where it does not.
PMS write-back
The patient in pain at 08:40
- Other consent tools
- Skipped, because the process is too long, and nothing records that it was skipped.
- Candour
- A same-day pathway with mandatory risks only — or a bypass that needs a written reason and shows up in governance.
Emergency pathway
The seal
Tamper-evident, which is not the same as tamper-proof.
Ask every tool you are comparing the same question, and expect the same specificity back.
Record chain
Verified on every load
- 8f3c1d…a02e7b#1,172 · Sealed 11 Mar
- follows 8f3c1d…a02e7bb71a90…4fd3c2#1,173 · Sealed 12 Mar
- follows b71a90…4fd3c22ce480…91b6da#1,174 · Sealed 12 Mar
Each record stores the hash of the one before it, so altering one breaks every link after it. Tamper-evident, which is not the same as tamper-proof: it shows that something moved, not that nothing ever could.
Sealed record
position 1,174
- Follows
- 8f3c1d…a02e7b
- This record
- b71a90…4fd3c2
- Version
- Dental implant v4 — approved 12 Mar by K. Osei
Where Candour is behind
Three places another tool would beat this one today.
Every comparison page is written by the vendor. Here is the inconvenient part.
Track record
Candour has no customers. Five years in practices is five years of edge cases found by somebody other than the authors, and that is worth a great deal.
Practice-system coverage
Live integration exists for one UK practice system. A tool with signed vendor agreements would connect where this one imports a CSV.
Clinical content
Not yet reviewed by a registered clinician. The product refuses to show it to a patient until it is, which is right and is not the same as having reviewed content.
Switching
What a practice found when they moved.
There is no such practice yet, so there is no such quote.
Switching account — reserved
A practice that moved from another tool, and what actually changed.
Fills when a practice has switched and will describe it, including the annoying parts. A switching story with no friction in it is one nobody should believe.
Side-by-side trial — reserved
A practice that ran both for a month, and what the two records looked like.
Fills only if a practice runs a genuine parallel trial and agrees to publish it. A vendor's own bake-off is an advert with a table in it.
Compare it against the thing itself.
The console runs on illustrative data. Nothing you do in it touches a patient.