Giselle Mettam, Executive Director of Metta Health, explains how personal coordination, supported by round-the-clock private GP care from Doctorcall, can bring clarity, reassurance and continuity to a healthcare journey.
IN CONVERSATION WITH
Giselle Mettam
Executive Director at Metta Health
“Bringing the whole healthcare journey together, with the person at its centre.”
When someone is unwell, even simple decisions can feel unusually difficult. Add consultants, hospitals, tests, travel arrangements and follow-up appointments, and the practical side of private healthcare can quickly become another burden for the patient and their family.
Metta Health exists to carry much of that burden. The medical concierge service supports UK-based and international clients as they move through private healthcare, helping them understand their options, coordinate appointments and manage the details surrounding treatment and recovery.
Metta Health is a medical concierge and coordination service rather than a clinical provider. It works with Doctorcall to give its clients access to private GP care 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. This includes GP visits at home or in a hotel, along with telephone and video consultations.
Doctorcall’s doctors provide clinical assessment, advice and medical oversight. Metta Health coordinates the wider journey and helps clients find services that reflect their clinical needs, personal priorities and hopes for the future.
At the centre of Metta Health is Giselle Mettam, a nurse and former hospital director with experience across many areas of the NHS. She began her career as a cardiac nurse on the front line before moving into research, project and programme management, service transformation and senior operational leadership. She later served as a director at a busy hospital and held roles at a national level.
Her belief in personal, carefully coordinated care is grounded in that professional experience, but its roots are deeply personal.
The Experience That Inspired Metta Health
Before Metta Health began, Giselle found herself facing the same questions that now bring families to the service.
Her father, a busy lawyer who lived abroad, had been told he would probably benefit from spinal surgery. Giselle used her clinical background to research suitable specialists in the UK. She eventually found a surgeon with experience in minimally invasive procedures, an important consideration because her father hoped to return to work as soon as his recovery allowed.
“I remember thinking, I couldn’t entrust my precious dad’s care to just anyone,” she says.
The operation went well. Giselle remembers walking towards the intensive care unit afterwards, frightened by what she might find. Instead, her father was sitting up, smiling and eating a salmon dinner. After major spinal surgery, he had only a small plaster on his neck.
The relief was overwhelming.
“I remember thinking that I wanted other daughters to feel like this, and other sons, wives, husbands and families,” Giselle says.
She wanted other families to feel confident that the person treating their loved one had the right clinical expertise and understood what mattered to them as an individual.
“That is where Metta Health was born.”
“It is not just looking at the disease. It is looking at the person.”
Executive Director of Metta Health
Looking At The Whole Person
Giselle connects the name Metta Health with the idea of stepping back to see the bigger picture.
In healthcare, that bigger picture includes far more than a diagnosis. It includes the person’s age, lifestyle, responsibilities, concerns, preferences and hopes for life after treatment.
“It is not just looking at the disease,” she says. “It is looking at the person.”
A treatment may be clinically successful, but the wider outcome will still depend on whether it allows the person to return to work, care for their family, travel, regain their independence or continue doing the things that matter to them.
Metta Health brings together Giselle’s clinical understanding, operational experience and the perspective of someone who has sat anxiously beside a loved one. That combination shapes the way the service listens to clients and coordinates their care.
What A Medical Concierge Actually Does
The idea of a medical concierge is still unfamiliar to many people.
Giselle compares it with the concierge in a good hotel. There is one trusted person who understands what is needed, answers questions and coordinates the practical details. Metta Health applies that model of personal support to a healthcare journey.
The process begins with listening. The team asks what has happened so far, which doctors the client has seen, what tests have been carried out and what recommendations have already been made.
Relevant medical information, such as referral letters, scans, X-rays and blood-test results, can then be gathered and organised for the clinicians involved in the person’s care.
One question is particularly important: what does the client hope to achieve?
Two people with a similar condition may have very different priorities. One may want to return to a physically demanding job. Another may be focused on caring for children, travelling comfortably or remaining independent at home.
Those personal goals do not replace clinical judgement, but they help the doctors and everyone coordinating the journey understand what a good outcome means to that individual.
Once Metta Health understands the client’s history, circumstances and priorities, it works with the client and their clinical providers to coordinate the next steps. This may include consultations, diagnostic tests, procedures, communication with medical secretaries, transport and accommodation.
For someone who is ill, in pain or worried about a diagnosis, having those details managed by another person can make the experience feel more manageable. The client remains in control of the decisions, but they do not have to find every answer alone.
Working Together To Find The Right Route
Private GPs play an important role in guiding patients towards specialist care. Experienced private doctors often have extensive knowledge of consultants, hospitals and established referral routes.
Metta Health does not replace that clinical knowledge or compete with the GP’s referral relationships. It works collaboratively with the client, Doctorcall’s GPs and any other clinicians already involved.
When a client comes through Doctorcall, the GP can assess their symptoms, consider their medical history and advise on the most suitable clinical route. The doctor can then draw on established referral processes and specialist knowledge when further investigation or consultant care is required.
Metta Health adds another perspective to that process. Its team brings together the client’s personal priorities, practical circumstances and preferences, then helps coordinate the recommended route.
The clinical suitability of a consultant comes first. Once that has been established, other factors may help determine which suitable option is the best fit for the individual. A client may need a particular hospital, treatment approach or appointment timeframe. They may prefer a consultant who communicates directly and concisely, or someone who takes more time to explain each stage.
These decisions are made with the client rather than for them. Doctorcall contributes clinical judgement and referral knowledge, while Metta Health helps keep the resulting journey organised, personal and connected.
One Person Who Knows The Whole Story
Every Metta Health client is supported by a Personal Coordinator who acts as their journey partner.
The coordinator manages appointments and practical arrangements, communicates with hospitals and medical secretaries, and remains a familiar point of contact throughout the process.
This continuity can be especially important in healthcare. Patients are often asked to repeat the same history to different people. They may wait for calls from several departments or receive messages that do not appear to fit together.
When someone is unwell or frightened, even a small communication gap can feel enormous.
A Personal Coordinator knows the client’s situation and can bring the different parts of the journey together. If a practical concern arises, the client knows whom to contact. If the concern is medical, the coordinator can help connect the client with Doctorcall or the relevant clinical team.
The relationship can continue beyond a procedure and into discharge, follow-up and recovery.
“The Personal Coordinator is the client’s journey partner,” Giselle says. “They literally walk the journey with them.”
Extra Reassurance For International Clients
Travelling to another country for medical care adds another layer of vulnerability.
International clients may be leaving their usual doctors, family support and familiar routines at the very moment they feel least able to manage without them. They may also be dealing with unfamiliar terminology, transport, accommodation and a healthcare system that works differently from the one at home.
Metta Health supports clients before they arrive, during their time in the UK and as they prepare to return home. The team can coordinate medical records, consultations, hospital arrangements, local travel, accommodation, discharge planning and follow-up.
Working with Doctorcall means clients can also access private GP support if they become unwell, need medical advice or have questions during their time in the UK.
Doctorcall can support GP consultations in more than 240 languages. This can be particularly valuable when a client needs to explain symptoms, discuss medication or understand medical advice in the language in which they feel most comfortable.
Giselle often speaks of the “Metta Health family”. It is more than warm language. The aim is for a client arriving in the UK to feel that there is someone here who knows them, understands the plan and will respond if something changes.
The same need for clarity exists among UK-based clients. Deciding to use private healthcare is only the beginning. The patient may still need to understand which clinical route has been recommended, what happens next and how the different parts of their care will fit together.
Metta Health adapts that support to the individual rather than applying one fixed route.
Questions Worth Asking Before Choosing A Medical Concierge
Giselle advises people to look closely at a concierge service’s experience, independence and relationship with clinical providers.
A medical concierge should be clear about the distinction between coordinating care and providing medical advice. It should also be able to explain how it works with GPs, consultants, hospitals and other clinical teams.
Clinical knowledge within the concierge team can still be valuable. It helps coordinators understand the information a specialist may need, ask useful questions and communicate effectively with the professionals responsible for diagnosis and treatment.
Clients should also ask how potential routes are identified, whether they will be involved in decisions and how the service responds if something changes during treatment or recovery.
These concerns sit at the heart of Giselle’s book, Don’t Gamble with Your Health: Seven Key Steps for Safe, Successful Medical Travel.
The book encourages patients to look beyond a polished website and check the qualifications of the clinician, the standards of the hospital, infection-control arrangements, recovery planning and what will happen if a complication arises.
“If everything goes well, great,” Giselle says. “If something happens, what happens?”
The answer should be clear before a patient travels or commits to treatment.
Where Private GP Care Fits Into The Journey
Specialist care is only one part of a person’s healthcare.
Before a consultant appointment, a GP may assess new symptoms, review medication, bring together relevant medical information and advise on the most suitable next step. The GP may then refer the patient through established routes if specialist care is required.
After a procedure, access to a GP can be just as valuable.
Discharge can feel like the end of the hospital’s work, but for the patient it marks the beginning of recovery. Questions may arise once they are back at home or in a hotel. A symptom may change, medication may need to be reviewed, or the patient may want advice about whether their recovery is progressing as expected.
The partnership between Metta Health and Doctorcall will provide another layer of support at these points.
Doctorcall provides private GP care 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Appointments can take place at the patient’s home, hotel or temporary accommodation, as well as by telephone or video consultation.
A patient recovering from treatment can receive medical advice without making an unnecessary journey, while their Metta Health Personal Coordinator continues to manage the wider plan and keep the different parts of their care connected.
Home and hotel visits can provide useful clinical context. Seeing where and how someone is recovering may help the GP understand the practical situation, assess the patient and advise on what should happen next.
If further specialist or hospital input is required, Doctorcall can work through the relevant clinical route while Metta Health helps coordinate the arrangements around it.
For UK-based clients who value longer-term continuity, Doctorcall also offers membership options alongside one-off visits. This gives individuals and families the option of an ongoing relationship with a private GP service rather than beginning again each time a medical need arises.
The aim is not to add more people to an already complicated journey. It is to give each person a clear role and make sure the patient can reach the right kind of help when they need it.
A Partnership Built Around Continuity
Metta Health and Doctorcall share a belief that good healthcare should feel personal, coordinated and responsive.
Doctorcall brings experienced private GP care, clinical assessment and established referral knowledge. Its doctors can support clients at home, in a hotel or remotely by telephone or video, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year.
Metta Health brings personal coordination, detailed planning and a consistent point of contact throughout the wider healthcare journey.
“We are excited to partner with Doctorcall,” Giselle says. “We have committed to supporting each other with our clients.”
For the client, the value is straightforward. There is a doctor available to provide clinical assessment and advice, alongside a Personal Coordinator who understands the wider journey and helps bring its different parts together.
There is support before treatment, practical coordination around it and access to private GP care during recovery. The patient and their family can focus more of their energy on getting well.
That returns to the idea at the heart of Metta Health: stepping back to see the bigger picture, then making sure the person at the centre of it never feels reduced to a diagnosis.
Private GP Support For Metta Health Clients
If you are receiving support from Metta Health and need private GP care before a specialist appointment, while staying in the UK or during your recovery, speak to your Personal Coordinator about Doctorcall.
Doctorcall provides private GP visits at home, in hotels and in temporary accommodation, along with telephone and video consultations. Support is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with GP consultations available in more than 240 languages.