A Harley Street doctor has been struck off after a tribunal concluded he tried to "exploit" a dying patient into paying £33,000 for an unlicensed cannabis-based treatment programme.
Dr Julian Kenyon, 77, was reported to the General Medical Council after he was accused of giving an unnamed terminal cancer patient "false hope" by recommending unorthodox treatments. A disciplinary panel at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service in Manchester accused Kenyon of profiteering from a "vulnerable" man as he suffered from stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer.
Kenyon was said to have recommended a treatment of cannabidiol, vitamins and sound and light therapy to the man - known as Patient A - telling him he had already tried "all the standard treatments" and that he was "running out of treatment options". Kenyon, who is medical director of a private surgery, told the patient during a consultation that he had as little as six months to live before informing him his initial treatment would cost £13,000.
Dr Julian Kenyon was found to have exploited a 'vulnerable' man (Julian Kenyon/ Cavendish Press (Manchester) Ltd)If that didn't work, he said the man would need to fork over an additional £20,000, with another £750 on top for blood tests. While telling the patient he could not be cured, Kenyon was said to have "bamboozled" him with literature he compiled himself and insisting the new treatment had a 10 percent chance of a "complete response, no tumour". The patient - who was already receiving conventional treatment on the NHS - was said to have felt "distressed and under pressure" by the prospective costs.
At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) hearing, a Consultant Oncologist known as Dr E said Kenyon's treatment programme was "inappropriate" as the patient had just started a type of hormone therapy called Enzalutamide, and there had been no time to review whether it was working. The doctor said Enzalutamide has "proven benefits" in prostate cancer response and survival, and there were other licenced conventional treatments available for him to try.
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The expert said whilst the sonodynamic/photodynamic therapy recommended by Kenyon was used for skin cancer, there was no evidence of it being effective for prostate cancer. He dismissed Kenyon's claims as "unverifiable and extremely unlikely" and added that his evidence was so poor "it in effect makes this a total fabrication." He said the literature Kenyon sent to Patient A was "of no use."
Dr Kenyon operated the Dove Clinic in Twyford (Julian Kenyon/ Cavendish Press (Manchester) Ltd)
Dr Kenyon claimed the patient was 'totally wiped out' by conventional treatments (Julian Kenyon/ Cavendish Press (Manchester) Ltd)In his evidence, Dr Kenyon claimed his patient had wanted to give up his existing treatments, saying he was "totally wiped out with it". He defended his recommended programme by claiming it had come from cancer immunotherapy literature and his own review of results from the 500 cases out of his surgery - the Dove Clinic - in Twyford. He claimed to have treated patients with sonodynamic/photodynamic therapy over the past 20 years.
The surgery closed in 2023, with Dr Kenyon owing creditors almost £154,000. The patient ultimately decided against the regimen after consulting with his daughter, who is also a doctor, and he died 12 months later. The tribunal branded his conduct "wholly unacceptable, morally culpable and disgraceful".
The GMC found Dr Kenyon had previously been ordered to work for a year under a series of restrictions in 2014 after holding a similar consultation with another terminally ill patient at his London clinic, and in 2013, he had been given a warning for failing to provide good clinical care to a patient. He was also once caught touting his quack treatments to an undercover investigator from a Sunday newspaper.
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