About Entity Confidence
Competitive intelligence for private dental practices, built by two founders who have worked together for over 25 years. We are based in Canterbury, Kent, and currently work with dental practices in Kent.
How Entity Confidence began
Photography has long been a personal interest of Hedley’s, one he developed into a commercial service working with businesses across the south-east. Behind the camera, he noticed something easy to miss: businesses with excellent reputations and loyal customers were not the ones AI-powered search engines recommended. Competitors, sometimes less experienced and less established, were named instead.
That observation might have stayed an interesting anecdote. What turned it into Entity Confidence was the work Hedley and Tony had already been doing together for a decade, helping SME clients secure R&D tax relief for projects applying artificial intelligence. That work had given them a detailed, practical understanding of how AI systems process and evaluate information, so when Hedley raised what he had noticed, Tony recognised immediately that it pointed to something systemic.
They spent months investigating how AI systems evaluate businesses, treating the question as a piece of R&D, and published their definition of entity confidence as a research paper on Zenodo. Their conclusion was that AI systems form a judgement about whether a business can be identified, understood, and recommended with confidence, and that the judgement depends on the quality, consistency, and breadth of the evidence the business presents.
The issue was never a lack of quality or credibility. It was that AI systems had no reliable way of detecting it. The businesses that had made themselves readable to AI were gaining a competitive advantage that others could not see. Entity Confidence makes that advantage visible.
Why we started with dental practices
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Practices compete street by street
In a submission to the Competition and Markets Authority, one mid-sized dental group said its own analysis found typically 8 to 10 competing practices within 3 km of a practice. Knowing which of them AI recommends is intelligence a practice can act on, and it is why we work with one practice per town.
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Private dentistry is growing
The number of private-only dentists in the UK rose from 5,980 in 2019/20 to 9,136 in 2023/24, and 44% of dentists surveyed by the British Dental Association intend to reduce their NHS commitment over the next year.
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Independent practices are outspent
Independent practices make up around 65% of UK dental practices, and some dental professionals have told the CMA that independents struggle to match the marketing budgets of larger groups. Entity Confidence gives an independent practice competitive intelligence without a group-sized marketing budget.
The same dental group told the CMA that word of mouth from existing patients is the best way to attract new ones. We see an AI recommendation as a new kind of word of mouth, and one that, unlike conversations between patients, a practice can monitor.
We currently work with dental practices in Kent and are expanding county by county. The same method applies to other local professional services; we chose to begin with dentistry.
Sources: a mid-sized dental group’s submission to the CMA (published by the CMA on 17th July 2026); British Dental Association, evidence to the CMA’s private dental market study (April 2026); Competition and Markets Authority, private dental services market study update (17th July 2026).
Our founders
Entity Confidence Ltd was founded by Hedley Basford MBA FCA and Tony Lord CEng MIET, who have worked together for over 25 years.
Hedley Basford MBA FCA
Co-Founder and CEO
Hedley qualified as a chartered accountant (FCA) and worked with Arthur Andersen in London before establishing his own management consultancy practice, helping small and large companies become profitable and sustainable. He holds an MBA from Cranfield School of Management.
For the past ten years, he and Tony have helped SME clients secure R&D tax relief, including for projects applying artificial intelligence. That combination of commercial and technical experience shapes how Entity Confidence works: a dental practice is a business as well as a clinic, and the Roadmap is written for the people who run it.
Tony Lord CEng MIET
Co-Founder and CTO
Tony is a Chartered Engineer with decades of experience in systems research, development, and implementation. He designed and built the methodology behind every Entity Confidence Roadmap, from the automated assessment pipeline to the analysis that turns what AI-powered search engines say into clear, prioritised actions for a practice.
Because the Roadmap is produced by software Tony has engineered, every practice receives the same rigorous, consistent monthly intelligence.
Why we chose the name
In AI and data science, an “entity” is any distinct, identifiable subject, such as a person, a place, or a business. “Confidence” describes how certain a system is about its understanding of that entity.
Together, the words describe what decides whether AI recommends a practice: how confidently it can identify the practice, understand it, and vouch for it. This is the thinking behind our name, not a technical claim about how AI itself classifies the term.
For a dental practice, it can be as simple as whether AI can tell that the name on your website, the name on your Google Business Profile, and the name on your CQC registration all refer to the same practice.
Your town’s position may still be available
We work with one dental practice per town. Once a practice in your area subscribes, the position is closed to its competitors.
Check availability in your town