A MIDLAND holiday firm is offering customers the chance to beat the credit crunch – by going under the knife in Eastern Europe.

Staffordshire-based Allo Travel is organising bespoke Eastern European trips for people looking for a cheap alternative to plastic surgery or expensive dental works.

The company is currently offering treatments such as new veneers, Botox injections, skin peeling and even colonic irrigation in Poland – at up to half the cost of the UK.

But it is also hoping to take advantage of new EU legislation and expand the range of services on offer to include major surgery like knee and hip replacements.

Allo Travel managing director Alla Pashynska said: "There is a growing market in medical tourism, especially because dentists are so hard to find in the UK and plastic surgery can be so expensive.

"As the costs of living go up more and more people are looking for cheaper alternatives to what is on offer in Britain and I’ve had quite a few enquiries already.

"I’ve got no doubt the credit crunch is making people think twice about paying for treatment in the UK when they can travel to Eastern Europe, have the treatment and return and save thousands.

"Hopefully in future I’ll be able to extend it to things like knee and hip replacement and the business can grow and grow. At the moment I’m only offering trips to Poland but hopefully I want to extend it to clinics in Hungary and maybe the Ukraine in future. The clinics I currently use in Poland for example are some of the best in the country."

The travel firm is also seeking to benefit from a new EU law which would allow UK citizens to have major operations in foreign hospitals, free of charge.