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A minor’s record can be read, and their appointments booked, by somebody else. ClinikEHR records who that is, what they are allowed to do, and — this is the part worth reading — whether anybody actually answered the question.
On Solo & Team plans the same controls say client where this page says patient — Access to this client’s records. Everything else is identical.

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The Guardians card

A Guardians card appears wherever a patient is open: on their own record beside their contact details, and in the left-hand rail of the consultation chart and the ward chart. It is the same card everywhere, reading the same row, so no two screens can describe one guardian differently. Each line carries the guardian’s name (or Name unavailable in italics, rather than a blank), a Primary badge where one is set, the relationship (or Relationship not recorded), and one statement about records access. A second block headed Guardian for lists the people this patient is a guardian of. The two are never merged — a mother is the guardian of her baby and not the reverse.
An empty card is no card. With no guardians and no dependents, nothing is rendered at all — the card never claims “none on file”, because nobody can tell that apart from a card that was simply never filled in. Where the lookup itself fails it says Guardian links could not be checked for this patient.
The card deliberately holds no contact details and no billing. A guardian is a second person, and their phone number and email are not shown on somebody else’s chart.

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The five things records access can say

Only a confirmed grant is given any visual weight. An unconfirmed one stays muted and says so in words, so the two are told apart at a glance without a legend. Rest on an unconfirmed line and it explains itself: “Nothing records anybody answering this — it predates the question being asked.”
A guardian recorded before August 2026 may read as having access nobody granted. Until then the question had no control on any screen and the record simply assumed yes, so every guardian added before the fix reads Can access records. Some of those are real answers a clinician gave; some are not, and nothing distinguishes them. Treat — not confirmed as unanswered, not as a grant, and confirm it before you act on it at the desk.
Nothing was rewritten to fix this, deliberately: a sweep would have destroyed the only evidence of what the record actually held, and it would have changed what a chart had already told a clinician about a real person. So the wording states what the row holds and then states, truthfully, that nothing records who said so.

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Confirm an unconfirmed answer

1

Open the patient's record for editing

From the patient list, or from the pencil in the left-hand rail of a consultation chart (Edit patient info). The Client Info tab is where guardians live.
2

Find the guardian under Guardian information

Each guardian is a panel of their own, under a heading that reads Guardian information — “Manage parents or legal guardians for this minor.”
3

Read what Access to this patient's records says

Three choices: Not recorded, Can access records, No records access.
4

Tick the confirmation, or change the answer

Where the stored answer has never been confirmed, a tick box appears under the choice: “This was recorded before anyone was asked the question, so the chart shows it as not confirmed. Tick to record that it is correct.” Tick it to keep the answer and record that somebody stands behind it.If the answer is wrong, change the choice instead. Changing it is answering it, so the tick box disappears — there is nothing left to vouch for.
5

Save

The chart drops the — not confirmed wording on the next read.
Saving the record without ticking the box changes nothing about the answer. That is the point. The sheet rewrites the whole guardian row whenever anything on the patient changes, so if an ordinary save counted as confirming, correcting a phone number would quietly vouch for an access grant nobody had looked at.

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The other things a guardian row records

Two of these behave differently on purpose, and it is worth knowing which:
  • Records access and appointment booking start at “Not recorded”. Both are grants of authority over another person, and there is no safe guess. Yes hands out access nobody asked for; no asserts a refusal nobody made. Unanswered is the only state that is true the moment a guardian is added.
  • Emergency contact starts ticked. It grants nobody power over anybody — it records who the desk rings. Its safe side is therefore the opposite: somebody to ring. Untick it for a guardian who must not be called.

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A newborn’s guardian is created for them

When a baby is registered as a patient from a birth record, the mother is added to the new chart as a guardian automatically, as Parent and Primary, with records access granted, appointment booking granted, emergency contact set and Responsible for billing on. That grant is made by a person doing the registration, so it is a confirmed answer and never reads — not confirmed. Review it like any other if the family’s arrangements differ — particularly Responsible for billing, which puts the mother on the baby’s account.

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Check it worked

  • Open the patient’s chart: the Guardians card names the guardian, their relationship and one of the five access statements.
  • A guardian you just confirmed reads Can access records with no trailing — not confirmed.
  • The tick box is gone from their panel the next time you open it.
  • A patient you made a guardian of somebody appears under Guardian for on that person’s card.

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Common issues

There are no guardians and no dependents on file, so nothing is drawn — the card never says “none”. Add one from the patient’s record: on Client Info, tick Client is a minor (Dependent), then Add guardian.
The link exists but the person it points at could not be resolved. It is shown rather than hidden, because a link nobody can name is something to go and look at.
Expected, if they were all added before August 2026. The set is closed and finite: nothing added since can join it. Work through them as you meet them rather than in a batch — each one is a question for whoever knows the family.
It clears when you change the access choice, because changing the answer is answering it. Tick the box only when you are keeping the answer that is already there.
Guardian panels only appear while Client is a minor (Dependent) is ticked on Client Info. On an adult record there is nothing to show.

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FAQ

No. It is a record of what your workspace has decided, for staff to read before they hand anything over. Portal access is granted separately — see Invite patients to the portal.
Because clearing them would destroy the only record of what the product actually held, and would change what a chart had already told somebody about a real person. Marking them is honest; rewriting them is not.
Yes, and at most one of them is Primary. Clear primary guardian leaves none, which is a real answer where no one guardian takes precedence.
Who pays does not belong beside a patient’s clinical identity. It is on the guardian’s panel in the record, and it drives billing.
No. It changes what the chart says about the answer — from “this is what the record holds, and nobody is recorded as having said so” to a statement somebody stands behind. The stored answer is untouched.