Questions families ask us

A WhatsApp group is where most families start — and where the problems show up: too many messages, no one sure who's done what, and one person quietly carrying the load. Kinclara replaces the scroll with one shared view: medications, appointments, and the next step, visible to everyone in the family. It's not a clinical tool — it's for the family around the person. When something is done, everyone can see it was done. No one is left chasing.

Read the full guide: an alternative to WhatsApp for family caregiving

Discharge rarely comes with much notice, and a family that was visiting in shifts suddenly has to sort medication, transport, and who is in the house on Thursday. Two things help most. Ask the ward what changed — what was started, what was stopped, what dose is different — and ask for it in writing. And ask about HSE home support before the discharge date is set: you can apply while your relative is still in hospital, it is free, and there is no medical card or income test. Then put it somewhere the whole family can see, so the person who happened to be on the ward that morning is not the only one who knows.

Read the full guide: a hospital discharge checklist for Irish families

In Kinclara, the family creates a Care Circle and adds the medications once — they're usually the daily friction point, so they go in first. From then on, everyone invited sees the same schedule. If the GP changes a prescription, one person updates it and the rest of the family sees the change without anyone having to type out an explanation in a group chat.

Read the full guide: how to share a parent's medication schedule with siblings

About 20 minutes, on a video call with the founder. You bring one parent, one or two family members, and the current medication list. Together you create the Care Circle, add the medications, invite one family member (choosing their role live), and add the next appointment or task. The family leaves the call with a working shared view. No demo, no slides, no pitch — and you don't need a clinician, and you don't need to convince your siblings to learn anything new.

Create a Care Circle, invite family (and a professional if needed), then track tasks, medicines, wellness, and appointments together — in minutes.

Log medication doses, add wellness notes, update tasks, and share calendar events. It's designed for quick check-ins — not long admin sessions.

No. Kinclara doesn't provide medical advice or clinical care. It's for the family around the person — coordinating meds, appointments, and the small daily things that fall through when no one has a shared view. A trusted professional can be invited into a Care Circle where the family chooses, but the product is family coordination, not healthcare delivery.

The line we hear most from beta families isn't "this is amazing." It's "I haven't had to chase anyone since Tuesday." One family of three siblings added their mum's four medications on a Sunday afternoon; by day three a GP prescription change was visible to the brother in London without a single explanatory message; by day seven the sister who'd been carrying the most said she hadn't had to chase anyone. That's what the Care Circle is for — the 11pm "did anyone check on Mum?" text not needing to happen.

Yes. Every family member has a role, and some just want to read. View-only access is for the brother who calls Mum on Sundays and wants to know what happened this week, or the sister abroad who'd rather not be in the daily group chat but still wants to know. They see updates without being asked to do anything. It's the role that surprises families most — the problem is rarely that people don't care; it's that they care differently.

Read the full guide: how to coordinate care for an ageing parent as a family

Anyone you invite: family members and, if you choose, a trusted professional. Everyone has their own login. You control who sees what.

The organiser creates a Care Circle and invites people by email. Roles control who can view or add information.

Yes. Owners can update roles or revoke access at any time. Changes take effect immediately.

Because the invite gets you to the right door, and the person who set the circle up still opens it. When you tap an invite link, Kinclara already knows which Care Circle you're joining — all you do is agree to keep what you see confidential and what you add accurate. The request then goes to the person who created the circle, and they let you in. That's deliberate. A link can be forwarded, screenshotted, or land in the wrong WhatsApp group. Someone in the family deciding who is actually in — every time — is what makes it safe to keep real information about someone's care in here. They're emailed the moment you ask, so it usually takes as long as it takes them to look at their phone.

The person who invited you was emailed as soon as you asked, and you'll get an email the moment they approve you. If it's been a while, they may simply not have opened it — a message in the family chat is the fastest thing that works. They'll find your request in Settings, under Circle, in Join Requests.

You can undo it yourself, as long as nothing has been added to it. Go to Settings, then Circle, and look for "Started this by mistake?" at the bottom. Deleting that circle frees your account, and the invite link will work normally afterwards. If something has already been added — a task, an appointment, anything — the button will tell you it can't be deleted. That's on purpose: it can only ever remove an empty circle, never a family's records. Email hello@kinclara.ie and we'll sort it out.

You choose what they can see and do, and you can change it afterwards — it isn't a decision you're stuck with. Family Member is the right answer for family, including a relative who happens to be a nurse, doctor or carer by profession: they're in this circle as a son, daughter, sister or brother, and they can update medications, add tasks and appointments, and read and write notes. Primary Carer gives them everything you have day to day, plus the ability to invite and approve people — use it for whoever is sharing the load equally with you. Only the circle owner can give someone that role. Care Professional is narrower, for someone paid to help: they can see the circle and tick a medication as taken, but not change the medication list, and they have no access to notes at all. View-only is for the person who should see what's going on without changing anything — the brother who rings on Sundays, the sister abroad. Changing roles, removing members and managing consent stay with the circle owner.

Yes. Community nurses, carers, or family advocates can be invited with view-only access or contributor roles — but families stay in control.

Only invited members of your Care Circle can see shared information. You control who has access and can adjust roles at any time.

The family. Not us, not the platform. Whoever creates the Care Circle decides who can edit and who has view-only access, and can change or revoke access at any time. The parent at the centre of the circle can see everyone who has been added and can ask for someone to be removed. No one is added without consent, the data stays inside the family, and there is no advertising and no third-party sale.

Medications, wellness, and notes need your explicit consent before they switch on for your Care Circle. It's never assumed just because you've signed up. You can see exactly what's been turned on, and withdraw consent for any module at any time in Settings → Consent.

Yes. All data is encrypted, stored within the EU, and designed around GDPR-aligned privacy principles. You own your data and can export or delete it whenever you want.

Core features will always be free to use — that's a public commitment from launch, and it holds. Families using Kinclara today won't wake up to a paywall. When pricing arrives there will be a paid tier with premium features and priority support, and families already in the beta get first access plus a say in getting the pricing right.

Nothing right now — Kinclara is a free private beta, and every feature in it today is free to use. Down the line, there may be a paid tier for premium extras and priority support. That's additional, not a replacement — core features stay free, and beta families see any pricing changes first.

Kinclara was built in Ireland by a family who needed it. The founder's wife works in healthcare — and when her own mother needed care, they still couldn't find a tool that worked for their family. So they built one, at their kitchen table. It turned out a lot of families were stuck in the same place.

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