NUQAIM and TMTC Build a UAE Medical Travel Corridor for UK and African Patients

NUQAIM Holdings, a diversified healthcare enterprise headquartered in Dubai, and The Medical Travel Company, a full-stack healthcare concierge based in London, signed a strategic partnership at the Dusit Thani in Dubai. The agreement establishes a medical travel corridor that brings patients from the UK and Africa to hospitals in the UAE. Patients from the GCC arrive through the same channel.

Under the arrangement described at the signing, NUQAIM supplies the UAE-side clinical network and hospital relationships, while TMTC runs the patient-facing work: assessment, matching, logistics and aftercare. The consortium manages each case from end to end and connects patients with specialists holding international reputations. The two organisations present the tie-up as a way to place the Emirates at the centre of the global market for cross-border treatment.

British demand is the immediate driver. NHS waiting lists sit at an all-time high, with more than 8 million people in the UK waiting to see a doctor or to have surgery. An estimated 523,000 UK residents travelled abroad for treatment in 2024, against 348,000 in 2022.

The corridor offers those patients surgery in the UAE, a flight of a few hours from Britain. The hospitals involved are accredited internationally and provide care at a world-class standard.

TMTC manages the whole episode rather than a single booking. Every case starts with a consultation with a specialist in the patient's home country. From there the company arranges visas, flights, accommodation and airport transfers, and assigns a dedicated care coordinator who stays with the case for its duration. The patient's own UK doctor remains involved before, during and after treatment. Recovery is nurse-assisted, and follow-up is delivered by telemedicine once the patient is home. Patients from Africa follow the same pathway.

International providers from India, the UK, the USA and the UAE will operate inside the Emirates under the partnership. The doctors attached to the consortium hold consultant-level posts and have carried out thousands of complex operations between them, robotic surgery among them.

Dr. Shajir Gaffar, Managing Director of NUQAIM Holdings, said the UAE has built some of the most advanced healthcare infrastructure in the world. "Patients from Europe, the GCC and Africa are increasingly choosing the UAE," he said. The partnership, in his description, opens a trusted corridor from the UK and brings highly experienced, world-renowned UAE-based specialists to manage patients, working to "the highest internationally evidence-based practices and care." He added that the partners are shaping a future where healthcare is accessible, efficient and compassionate.

Patients from Europe, the GCC and Africa are increasingly choosing the UAE,

Ankit Mehrotra, Co-Founder of The Medical Travel Company, said most medical travel companies book a hospital and stop there. In TMTC's model, a UK doctor assesses each patient's case, the company matches that patient with the right specialist, and it handles travel, treatment, recovery and follow-up once the patient is back home. He named two patients: Jean Paul, who received two new knees and skipped three years on a waiting list, and Marie, who at 79 received cancer treatment the NHS had told her was not possible. "We give people a second chance at life," Mehrotra said. NUQAIM, he added, can help bring the TMTC Ecosystem to the UAE so that patients receive world-class care through one fully managed journey.

Dr. Samih Tarabichi, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and knee and hip replacement specialist, said many UK patients face long waits for joint replacement surgery, during which pain can intensify and mobility can deteriorate. The UAE, he said, offers timely access to treatment at internationally accredited hospitals, delivered to established, evidence-based clinical standards. He stressed that the arrangement goes beyond the operation itself: every patient will go through a coordinated treatment pathway, structured post-operative rehabilitation and continuity of care after returning home. The result, in his words, is a patient-centred experience focused on clinical outcomes, recovery and long-term well-being.

The distinction the partners are drawing is between brokering a hospital bed and carrying responsibility for a case. Most cross-border arrangements end at the operating theatre door, leaving travel, recuperation and the records a referring physician needs to the patient's family. Holding that thread — a home-country assessment at the start, a named coordinator in the middle, telemedicine at the end — is what the corridor is asking UK patients to judge it on.

The launch included a panel discussion on the UAE's future as a global medical travel hub, moderated by Prof. Abdel Rahman Ahmed Omer, an international healthcare strategic advisor who is Executive Director of NUQAIM Holdings.

Dubai starts from a position of scale. The city ranks sixth in the world on the Medical Tourism Index and welcomed 691,478 international health tourists in 2023. Its healthcare sector holds around 5,800 licensed facilities and employs more than 69,400 private-sector healthcare professionals. The UAE ranks first globally for accredited healthcare facilities.