Online Health, Fitness, Diet and Lifestyle Management for employees.
Care first is a proud member of EAPA UK, the world’s largest, oldest, and most respected membership organisation for employee assistance professionals.
Management Team
Graeme Weymes
Biography- Service Director
Graeme Weymes is a very experienced commercial specialist, with several years in business development & operational management in the healthcare & HR industries. From an early career in hospital supply services (latterly as Sales Director for Baxter Healthcare’s UK distribution business), he then moved to work for BUPA in Corporate business development and then later in creating structured intermediary relationships.
In the mid 90’s he was responsible for over £0.5 billion of BUPA’s insurance portfolio value.
In the late 90’s he moved to become Sales & Marketing Director at the employee assistance provider PPC in Oxford (now Optum) and within the first year, by re-engineering their counsellor operating model, they grew dramatically to become the UK’s leading provider portfolio value.
After a short period running his own healthcare consultancy business, Graeme then joined Ceridian, a US leading outsourcer of HR & Payroll services. After several years as Sales Director, Graeme then took over their employee assistance programme operation – their brand at that time being “Lifeworks” – since sold to a Canadian operator and now under Telus Health.
The last 12 years of Graeme’s career has been with the Priory Group, as Hospital Director in the Glasgow Priory and the last couple of years as Operations Director in the Middle East, running out-patient clinics in the UAE and Saudi.
Graeme came back to the UK earlier this year and for a few months has been creating a suite of commercial healthcare partnerships for one of Care first’s clients – EachPerson.com.
Colin Grange
MSc in Psychotherapy, Registered Counselling Psychologist – Clinical Director
Colin has worked in the employee assistance/wellbeing area for over 29 years, and he is a former Chair of the Employee Assistance Professionals Association UK. He has extensive experience of developing and managing the delivery of clinical, information and wellbeing services to individuals and organisations, both remedial and preventative in nature, in both the UK and internationally. In his role of clinical director, he is responsible for ensuring the delivery of clinical services of the highest quality to the employees of Care first’s customer organisations. He is a specialist in personally delivering clinical, coaching, consultancy and training services to employees and managers at all levels within customer organisations.
Melissa Barnes
Head of Business Operations, BA (Hons) Sociology & Criminology
Melissa joined Care first in 2014 as a Key Contract Service Manager and has developed extensive experience in a variety of sectors specialising in NHS Trusts, Education, Group Income Protection, and Local Authorities, as well as managing many of our key Broker accounts.
With a key focus on our quality standards, process driven user experiences and business development; Melissa was appointed as Care first’s Quality and Process Audit Manager in 2019, a role which included full audits of our operational processes, the development and implementation of new innovative service elements and platforms, as well as designing and launching a new CRM system and imbedding this within our business functions.
Building on her work reviewing processes and introducing new service elements; Melissa was appointed as Care first’s Head of Quality and Process in 2022, responsible for the integrity of processes and procedures across the Business Operation of Care first, compliance and bespoke work for our Customer organisations. In addition to this, Melissa has led a number of key projects from scope and design through to implementation of new telecoms systems, booking platforms, and our innovative CaseNotes system in 2024.
Melissa was appointed as Head of Business Operations at Care first in 2024. Melissa leads the Operational function of Care first, supporting the delivery of Care first’s services to customers and associated back office/support functions. Melissa is responsible for the Business Support Team covering all finance and HR processes, the Call Centre Operations, Counselling Service Operations, IT provision and maintenance of the Care first facility in Gloucester.
Matt Collins
Foundation Chartered Manager, BSc (Sports Development & Sociology) – Head of Sales & Strategic Partnerships
Matt brings over four years of experience in client services and strategic partnerships to our team. With a proven track record of driving revenue growth and building strong, lasting relationships, he is passionate about helping our clients achieve their goals.
He has worked closely with a number of our key partners and key accounts to help integrate our EAP services into businesses to ensure our wellbeing solutions are tailored to the needs of our customers and partners.
Before joining Care first in January 2024, Matt worked in client services and supported public sector bodies in the Fintech and SaaS industries for four years. He worked with clients to develop strategic initiatives, and forged partnerships that significantly boosted service delivery.
Delivering the service
Our Service Managers, Telephone Counsellors, Information Specialists and Consultants are all permanent staff who, together with our Associate Counsellors, are trained, managed and clinically supervised by Care first.