Dr Julian Kenyon is no stranger to this blog:
- Why do patients rarely complain about receiving bogus treatments?
- Integrated/integrative medicine: a paradise for charlatans?
- The ‘OBERON’: revolutionary invention or dangerous con?
I met him once or twice in the mid 1990s. Then he was the GP partner of the late George Lewith. It took me not long to find that I thought of the former even less than the latter.
Now it has been reported that Julian Kenyon was struck off the UK medical register. Apparently, he put pressure on a patient with advanced cancer to pay £13,000 for so-called alternative medicine (SCAM), including sound and light therapy. He ran the former Dove Clinic, a private health centre at Twyford, Hampshire and wrongly told his patient: “You have had all the standard treatments and you are running out of treatment options”. Kenyon’s prescription in May 2022 included sonodynamic/photodynamic therapy as well as the supplements cannabidiol, claricell and similase. The patient was asked to pay a further £20,000 if the initial course of treatment was unsuccessful, the tribunal heard.
The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) ruled that the doctor’s conduct was “wholly unacceptable, morally culpable and disgraceful”. Kenyon told his patient that there was a 10% chance of his stage 4 prostate cancer being cured. This was a “total fabrication”, the MTPS found. The patient “was vulnerable and… made to feel under pressure to have expensive treatment that was not in his best interests”, it added.
Kenyon has form:
- In 2003, an undercover investigation by the BBC Inside Out programme accused Dr Kenyon of using spurious tests for allergies.
- In 2013, a tribunal found he failed to give good care.
- The following year, it said he made a misleading cancer cure claim.
The latest MTPS ruling bars Dr Kenyon from practising medicine in the UK. His former clinic went into liquidation in March 2023 and has debts of more than £154,000, according to Companies House. Despite all this, it was deemed to be “safe” and “effective”, according to its latest Care Quality Commission report, external in 2019.
3 Responses to Julian Kenyon struck off the UK medical register
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Unfortunately anyone can ‘practise medicine’ in the UK, e.g. parents give their children calpol etc. – the offense is to claim you are a ‘registered medical practitioner’ (if you are not registered by the GMC).
Dealing with significant pathology would lead most patients to expect a registered doctor, but chiropractors treat patients, and some style themselves as ‘doctor’; ‘Physician Asociates’ (who are not actually associated with the profession of ‘physician’ – their title is misleading but accepted by the government, NHS and even the GMC!) stray onto ‘medical’ territory. (Many want them to revert to their former and less misleading title of ‘physician assistant); a recent case was reported of a surgical care practitioner carrying out minimally invasive abdominal surgery – currently under investigation; Etc.
Doctors are not being protectionist.
The GMC was established as a regulated profession to stop quackery and in order that patients would benefit from proper identification of the qualified.
It’s called ‘maintaining standards’.
Who objects to that?
It may be a stretch to suggest that “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” (Burke), but in this and so many cases (not least the Post Office), why has it all taken so long to be dealt with?
Sigh.
I do sense a pendulum swinging as more folks appreciate the value of the Prof’s work in this area – and live in hope.
Julian Kenyon flourished in the mid 80s in practice in Southampton. At this time I heard about him and George Lewith getting good results with food intolerances when Drs were mostly ignorant of this.
So 1000s flocked to Bedford place Southampton and as the waiting lists for Kenyon got longer the consultation times got shorter. I think it ended up about 5 mins for £30 (a lot of money then) plus another £30 on supplements. Lots of us punters got enough out of it though to recommend others so Kenyon must have done quite well financially. After a very interesting but expensive 5 min appointment I thought ‘ thanks but I will go somewhere else where I can waffle on a bit longer about my problems’.
Sorry to hear though about him offering these treatments.
more details here:
https://lymescience.org/rogues/Julian-Kenyon/Julian-Kenyon-Dove-Clinic-misconduct-2024-05-16.pdf