Kenyan doctors and health facilities may advertise only the facts listed in the KMPDC Advertising Rules 2016, and never patient names or pictures. The KMPDC Code of Professional Conduct (7th edition) took effect on 1 Feb 2026, and the Data Protection Commissioner has ordered compensation where patient images were used in promotions without documented consent.
This is a working summary for marketing teams, not legal advice. Every rule below names the instrument it comes from so you can read the source rather than take our word for it, and so you can tell when something here has gone out of date.
Who regulates healthcare advertising in Kenya
- Medical Practitioners and Dentists Act (Cap. 253): the KMPDC
- Medical Practitioners and Dentists (Practitioners and Health Facilities) (Advertising) Rules, 2016
- KMPDC Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics, 7th edition (in force 1 Feb 2026)
- Pharmacy and Poisons Act (Cap. 244) and the PPB Guideline for Advertisement and Promotion of Health Products, Rev. 3 (2025)
- Data Protection Act 2019, the Data Protection (General) Regulations 2021 and ODPC guidance notes
- Health Act 2017, Digital Health Act 2023, Consumer Protection Act 2012 and Competition Act 2010
More than one of these usually applies at once. A campaign can satisfy the advertising regulator and still breach the data-protection one, which is the failure mode that catches most practices: the creative gets reviewed and the tracking does not.
The rules that actually change what you can publish
- Ads may carry only the permitted facts: identity, Board-recognised specialisation and qualifications, registration number and year, contacts, hours, accreditations, affiliations and publications (Advertising Rules r4(1)).
- No patient names, identities or pictures, which rules out testimonials and before/after in advertising (r5(1)(a)–(b)).
- No promised outcomes, no faster-than-others claims, and no money-back or no-cure-no-fee offers (r5(1)(d)–(f)).
- No touting intermediaries, arranged referral commissions or unsolicited contact (r7).
- No inducements for patient testimonials (Code §6.7(e)), and explicit written consent for patient images on social media (Code §7.10(h)).
- Prescription-only medicines may not be advertised to the public, and celebrity or influencer accounts may not advertise medicines (PPB Guideline Rev. 3).
- Commercial use of personal data needs express consent, health data may not be used for direct marketing, and sending sensitive data abroad needs explicit consent plus safeguards (DPA 2019 ss37 and 49; ODPC guidance).
- In 2025–26 the ODPC ordered compensation and takedowns where hospitals used patient or clinician images in promotions without documented consent.
At a glance: tactic by tactic
| Tactic | Where it stands | What applies |
|---|---|---|
| Patient testimonials | Not permitted | Patient names, identities and pictures are barred from practitioner and facility ads, so testimonials are effectively unavailable. Inducing patients to give testimonials is also barred. Source: KMPDC Advertising Rules 2016 r5(1)(a)–(b); KMPDC Code of Conduct, 7th ed. (2026) §6.7(e). |
| Asking for and showing reviews | Allowed with conditions | No inducements for testimonials or reviews. Republishing a patient's review, name or photo in marketing needs their express consent. Source: KMPDC Code of Conduct, 7th ed. (2026) §6.7(e); Data Protection Act 2019 s37. |
| Before-and-after images | Not permitted | Pictures of patients are barred in practitioner and facility ads. Educational social posts need explicit written consent. Source: KMPDC Advertising Rules 2016 r5(1)(b); KMPDC Code of Conduct, 7th ed. (2026) §7.10(h). |
| “Best”, “No.1” and guarantee claims | Not permitted | No promised outcomes, faster-than-others claims, money-back offers or denigrating other providers. Claims must be factual and verifiable. Source: KMPDC Advertising Rules 2016 r3(4)(c), r5(1)(d)–(f); KMPDC Code of Conduct, 7th ed. (2026) §6.7. |
| Prices, discounts and offers | Narrow exceptions | Prices are not on the list of permitted ad content, so we run no discounts without the client's written sign-off on the risk. No-cure-no-fee offers are barred. Source: KMPDC Advertising Rules 2016 r4(1), r5(1)(f). |
| Influencers and endorsements | Not permitted | KMPDC has said using celebrities or influencers to recommend hospitals is not in line with its rules. Doctors may not endorse health products or procedures, and influencer accounts may not advertise medicines. Source: KMPDC Advertising Rules 2016 r4(2); PPB Guideline Rev. 3 (2025). |
| A doctor promoting their own practice | Narrow exceptions | Ads may carry only the permitted facts: identity, Board-recognised specialisation and qualifications, registration, contacts, hours, affiliations and publications. Source: KMPDC Advertising Rules 2016 r4(1). |
| AI-generated content | Narrow exceptions | No AI-specific ad rule. AI is a support tool and the clinician stays responsible; synthetic patients or results breach the bans on misleading content. Source: KMPDC Code of Conduct, 7th ed. (2026) §7.11; KMPDC Advertising Rules 2016 r5(1)(c), (g). |
| Patient images and data | Allowed with conditions | Commercial use needs express consent, health data may not drive direct marketing, and sending sensitive data abroad needs explicit consent plus safeguards. Source: Data Protection Act 2019 ss37, 49; ODPC Guidance Note on Health Data (2023). |
| Regulator approval before publishing | Process | No pre-approval for practitioner ads, but medicine and product ads need PPB written permission, and KMPDC can rule on whether an ad is acceptable. Source: Pharmacy and Poisons Act s36; KMPDC Advertising Rules 2016 r3(5). |
How Branding Pioneers handles it
- Doctor and facility ads are built only from the permitted facts, with registration numbers checked against the KMPDC register.
- No patient names, faces, photos or testimonials in advertising.
- We bill flat fees, never per patient or per referral, and we do no cold outreach on a client's behalf.
- No influencer, celebrity or doctor endorsements of hospitals, procedures or medicines.
- Any patient or staff image uses a written, purpose-specific, withdrawable consent form that names us as a processor in India.
- Each Kenyan client has a data processing agreement covering cross-border safeguards, and we avoid receiving patient-identifiable data at all.
- AI-assisted content is reviewed and approved by the registered practitioner whose name it carries.
Tracking deserves the same scrutiny as copy. Analytics, pixels and remarketing tags routinely collect more than a healthcare provider is permitted to share, and the default installation of most of them is not compliant in Kenya. Audit what your tags send before you audit your ad copy.
Before you run anything
- Can you substantiate every claim in the creative, today, from a document you can produce?
- Do you have written consent for every patient who appears, covering this specific use?
- Has the approval or licence this market requires been granted, and is its number on the creative where required?
- Does your tracking send anything that identifies a patient or their condition?
- Has someone qualified in Kenya reviewed the campaign, not just the marketing team?
If the answer to the last one is no, that is the gap worth closing first. We work inside these rules daily and will tell you when something you want to publish is not worth the exposure, but we are a marketing agency, and a regulated market deserves a qualified reviewer as well.
Not legal advice. A planning summary of published rules, last checked on 11 October 2026. Rules change, so confirm the current text with the regulator or local counsel before relying on it.
