Clive Bonny — Atrial Fibrillation, Prostate Cancer & the Sudden Death Syndrome Nobody Checks For

Adam Walker:A warning that this episode discusses important but difficult topics, including suicide. If you are in crisis, please seek professional help. In the UK, Samaritans are free on 116 123, day or night.

Adam Walker:Clive Bonny is a long-standing advisor in responsible business standards, intellectual property protection and cost-efficient operational strategy. He's helped numerous organisations strengthen resilience while navigating complex regulatory and commercial pressures. His work spans board-level governance, dispute resolution and safeguarding high-value assets, giving him a uniquely cross-sector perspective that translates powerfully into pharma and digital health.

Adam Walker:On a personal level, Clive is a health advocate and a voice for patients. He lives with the cardiac condition atrial fibrillation and is a survivor of prostate cancer.

Adam Walker:For those of our audience who are not familiar with you, what is the mission you're on?

Clive Bonny:I've been running my business as a management consultant and business advisor to organisations large and small since 1990. My vision and mission haven't changed significantly over 36 years. If I could describe my vision, it would be providing the greatest good for the greatest number. That comes from a utilitarian standpoint ethically, and it enables people to judge me on the outcomes of my actions rather than just the actions. So I'm very outcome-oriented and very keen to promote sustainable value and equity for all.

Clive Bonny:When I was a very small child, just starting to get to grips with reading and books and stories, the most helpful stories my mum would read to me were Aesop's Fables and myths and legends from the Greeks, Romans and the Norse gods. That gave me a very good sense of right and wrong, and of the need for people to do the right thing, because I'm a believer in karma.

Clive Bonny:After school I didn't go to university, although in the last few years universities have been many of my clients. My first experience of work was as a Voluntary Service Overseas supply chain teacher at a Black African mission school in Zimbabwe — it was called Rhodesia back in 1972. I spent a year out there on my own working in the bush, teaching sports studies, religious studies and English studies. That really opened my eyes to the wider world and prompted me, for the next 50 years, to delve into community volunteering. I'd recommend volunteering to any student after school.

Clive Bonny:I was teaching students aged ten up to 18 to the standards of the Oxford and Cambridge syllabus, and they were picking up Shakespeare far better than most students I'd worked with in the UK. What that taught me was never make assumptions about different people, different cultures, their ability to learn and their ability to mix with other diverse members of society.

Adam Walker:You and I met at a health tech breakfast meeting some time ago and there was an immediate aura that I picked up from you — not just the way you integrated with strangers in the room, but something that indicated you were slightly different to most. What is that essence?

Clive Bonny:I'm a good mixer. As a young student I wasn't, and I learnt the value of mixing after my African experience. One of my favourite poems is by John Donne: "No man is an island entire of himself. Everyone is a piece of a continent, a part of the main." I've always felt everyone has something to offer irrespective of their background, culture, ethnicity or experience. I've maintained that enjoyment of learning at the grand old age of 73.

Clive Bonny:Family walking holidays in the Lake District taught me the value of being in the open air and regular exercise. I became keen on running as a young man, ran some of the first London marathons in the early 1980s, and my last marathon was in 2002 on rollerblades around the Goodwood racing circuit — bang on two hours despite losing a few wheels. We've got three Jack Russell rescue terriers which need walking twice a day, so health and fitness has stayed a big part of my life.

Clive Bonny:My early employers included the pharmaceutical companies Bayer, in Leverkusen, and Hoechst, in Germany. I was responsible for helping them innovate technical products and services globally, which gave me an introduction into health innovation and how to get new products and services into the marketplace. In 1990 I felt it was time to develop my own specialist advisory service, and I've worked ever since with clinicians in the NHS, in private practice, in holistic therapies, in mental health, and with inventors bringing new products to market.

Clive Bonny:I have in my hand something called microcurrent technology — a very simple wearable device. I worked with the inventors 12 years ago and submitted it to the British Invention of the Year award, where it came second. It was originally used for equine purposes to repair horse tissue damage, and I helped the inventor take it through human clinical trials. It's high tech and it's affordable. It became part of my recovery from atrial fibrillation: I put it round my ankle in a wearable pouch, switched it on and wore it overnight.

Adam Walker:What does that device do, and what is its method of action? I'm all about the detail — and, purely selfishly, I'm expecting an atrial fibrillation procedure in the next couple of weeks.

Clive Bonny:Without getting too technical, the device sends an electronic signal into the body which mimics the energy signal within each body cell. Each cell has a molecule called ATP, which stores and transmits energy across the body to improve tissue repair. All this device does is act as a battery recharger for the body. It sends that signal systemically, which accelerates tissue repair wherever there is tissue damage.

Clive Bonny:It's patented, and I was also responsible for the trademarking and design registration protections at the time. Design registration actually lasts longer than a patent — designs last 25 years, and trademarking can last a lifetime. So they've got long-term IP protection, and the device is available to buy online.

Adam Walker:When you first experienced those early signs of AF, how did you understand that something was not quite right?

Clive Bonny:I contracted the condition shortly after the sad loss of my younger brother to suicide. The condition can develop as a result of personal stress, and suicide in the family is a massively stressful experience. It affected me for many years and, I would say, still affects me. AF can also be a product of certain drugs which affect the way the heart conducts its electricity. My condition started 15 years ago. I still have it. I have a regular heart monitor at home and I'm monitored remotely without needing to go too often to hospital.

Clive Bonny:Exercise was part of my recovery programme. I increased my rollerblading in order to strengthen my heart. A lot of people feel that when they have a heart condition they need to be less active. That's not, in fact, the case — I was encouraged by the doctors to improve my activity rates, and that helped my recovery.

Adam Walker:I want to acknowledge the loss of your brother by suicide, Clive, and I enormously appreciate you sharing that. As you know, I also lost a sibling to suicide two years ago, and I cannot help but think that my AF was also caused by that. I'll also draw the interesting correlation that you were a marathon runner and so was I — I ran four London marathons. The more people I speak to about AF, the more I learn there are many contributory factors: stress, trauma and loss, but also high-level sport over many years.

Clive Bonny:I was diagnosed with AF by accident. I was laid out ready to be operated on for a hernia. They took my pulse and it was reading 30. When the pulse goes down to 30, your blood thickens and you become very high risk for a stroke, so they didn't perform the operation. I was dosed with heparin, a very strong anticoagulant, and spent the next two weeks in intensive care with a nurse 24/7 by my bedside, because my heart was stopping for ten seconds every 60 seconds.

Clive Bonny:I had to wait for a pacemaker to be installed to help regulate my heartbeat. I was given a cardioversion, which is what they do to stop your heart and restart it to recalibrate the pulse. That didn't work, so I was given an ablation — which I believe you're about to have yourself. I thoroughly recommend the operation, because although it is invasive, it doesn't hurt and you can watch it being performed.

Clive Bonny:AF is also known as 'sudden death syndrome', because it is very difficult to diagnose unless you're actually looking for it. So I always recommend people regularly take their pulse. If it falls below 50, that could be an early warning signal — a red flag — and it's worth having a check done. Nearly a million people in the UK alone are affected by AF, and many of them don't realise it until it's too late.

Adam Walker:I had a very extended atrial fibrillation attack just before Christmas last year. The only way I can describe it is that in the middle of my chest I felt like there was a budgerigar fluttering like mad. The more time went on, the more I felt like I was going to be sick, entirely out of body. We rang 999, they sent paramedics around very quickly, and the episode lasted four and a half hours.

Adam Walker:I wasn't exercising at the time. I wasn't breathless. I was just sat there and it came from nowhere. What I'd encourage people to do is take anything unusual seriously — a fluttering or a slight discomfort that's not normal for them. A cardiologist friend suggested I get a watch that keeps track of ECGs and flags AF, and I've worn it ever since. Even so, it hasn't picked up every episode, so these are not always as good as a medical device.

Clive Bonny:My PSA tests started several years ago. If your blood PSA reading goes over four, it creates a red flag requiring further monitoring. Mine started at one and two, then went over four, became five, eight, ten, twelve. I was on a six-month watch with regular physical checks and scans, and they found through samples just over a year ago that I had cancer.

Clive Bonny:They give you a benchmark called the Gleason score. Mine was four plus three, signifying action was required and it could become more widespread, but it wasn't inoperable. I took the decision to have my prostate removed. I was told the operation would be two hours; it ended up being six, because they discovered I had a very enlarged prostate, four times the normal size. Subsequent PSA tests came back at zero, so I can be regarded as pretty much cured, although testing continues six-monthly.

Clive Bonny:Full recovery for me was successful, in terms of both waterworks and sex life — men especially worry about that. I'd really encourage men who are peeing too often at night, and the women around them, to push for the PSA test. It's not one hundred percent accurate, but it does flag warning signals which can be further investigated.

Clive Bonny:May I quote a statistic, just to perhaps frighten your listeners: one in eight men in the UK contract prostate cancer, and of those, one in four will die because they were diagnosed too late. Early diagnosis makes a massive difference to one's life.

Adam Walker:My father had an enlarged prostate and there is a familial link. I'd remind any men listening to get their PSA checked regularly, particularly in their late 40s and early 50s and thereafter, and to be self-aware of what our bodies are telling us. We are our own baseline — only we know what is normal for us.

Clive Bonny:My operation was conducted by a surgeon called da Vinci — a ten-foot high, five-foot wide robot which created six incisions in my midriff and conducted the operation with the doctors working alongside it.

Clive Bonny:The robotics area of medicine has advanced dramatically in the last ten years. Da Vinci came into life about ten years ago and has been improved with various models. Now it is extraordinarily accurate at operating around sensitive organs, removing the risk of affecting nerve endings and complex areas of the body. For keyhole surgery it's the de facto standard, and I'd recommend anyone offered that facility not to worry about the robot.

Clive Bonny:My active interest was stimulated about 15 years ago when I joined a business network called the Organisation for Responsible Businesses. They're a non-profit body providing a network to small and medium sized enterprises interested in environmental conservation and social value. They're an accredited assessment body, and they asked me to become an assessor for other small enterprises.

Clive Bonny:A lot of people think corporate social responsibility — now relabelled ESG, environmental, social and governance — is bureaucracy and hard work for nothing. The entirely opposite is true. My last assessment took me six hours, one hour a week online, and cost the grand sum of £300. The certification lasts three years and is renewable. More importantly, it opened doors for me as a micro business working from home to work with the NHS, the Home Office, local government, councils, charities and the education sector.

Clive Bonny:The Public Procurement Act is now obliging small enterprises to demonstrate their social value and environmental credentials. This is a legal requirement and it's coming downstream quite quickly. Most small enterprises are not aware of it. The public sector is around forty percent of business across the whole of the UK, so it's worth the interest.

Clive Bonny:I've been trained as a suicide counsellor, so I'm able to spot potential risks along the cliff where I live and work in Rottingdean, which regrettably suffers from suicide loss. Sussex suffers dozens of cases every year because of our location. Suicide recognition and prevention has been important to me, especially after the loss of my younger brother — that stimulated the interest in getting trained properly.

Clive Bonny:Last year we had a threat to our local library being closed by the council. I helped galvanise and promote local community activists to prevent the closure. It was costing the council £20,000 a year and was used 28,000 times a year by the community. That campaign was successful.

Clive Bonny:More recently, because I live and work on a nature reserve, we successfully prevented the destruction of skylarks nesting on the ground by removing sheep that were trampling, eating and destroying the nests.

Clive Bonny:I'd also like to encourage more people to write about their experiences and share them, either through blogging or self-publishing. I'm a member of local writing clubs — the Brighton Writing Group has Arts Council funding to help potential and existing authors. With seven books under my belt, I'm a big promoter of encouraging others to do the same.

Adam Walker:What is the one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?

Clive Bonny:I wish I'd learnt earlier to spend more time giving before getting. When you're young, you want to get as much as possible as early as possible from other people, and people often underestimate what you can give when you're young. I'd also like to have spent more time understanding small enterprise. For the last ten years I've taken student interns every summer, and all of them have gone on to new job opportunities. The UK has nearly a million young people aged 16 to 24 out of work who want to work — a few months with a small enterprise can give a CV that boost.

Adam Walker:What are the top three qualities you value most when building a team?

Clive Bonny:One, recruit people who are different to you — diversity. Two, recruit people with the right attitude; they may not have the skills and knowledge, but with the right attitude to learn they will develop them. Three, people who understand the importance of mutual support, because no one is an island. So: diversity, a can-do attitude, and mutual support.

Clive Bonny:Outside work: rescue dogs — we've supported a local pet rescue charity for 20 years, and our eldest Jack Russell, Binky, is 16. People who can look after pets tend to be good at looking after other people. I write, I enjoy photography, and most of all I enjoy volunteering.

Adam Walker:Finally, what is your number one golden rule in life and in business?

Clive Bonny:When my two boys were young I'd play audiobooks in the car on how to live life. One was Stephen Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. One of those habits is to start with the end in mind — Covey described attending his own funeral and hearing what he wanted the attendees to say about his life. Myself and my youngest son agreed that the letters F-O-R stood for: fun, because you only get one chance; O for openness; and R for respect, respecting others wherever they come from. So what do you stand for is an interesting question to ask.

Clive Bonny:What I do, anyone actually can do if they think about it enough. I'm just a normal, ordinary human being working from home, self-employed for many years. But what I do can be replicated, and I encourage others to consider doing that.

Adam Walker:If anyone wants to reach out to you, Clive, what's the best way to make contact?

Clive Bonny:Check me out on LinkedIn — there's only one Clive Bonny, B-O-N-Y. And please take a look at my website, consult-smp.com, where I offer a lot of free advice on intellectual property protection, ESG and social value, and much else I've pivoted on over 36 years of running a small enterprise.