Inside the GP clinic that WILL see you out of hours: It's £70 an appointment and open all weekend. No wonder Britons flock to a Polish practice taking on the NHS My Medyk clinic in West London is opened seven days a week Set up in 2008 by two Polish doctors, it has 6,000 Britons among the 30,000 patients on its books Same-day GP appointments last half an hour and cost £70 Last Saturday on the dot of her 11.15am appointment, a pretty young wife called Nela Molik went to see the doctor at a small surgery nestling in a parade of shops overlooking an enormous, noisy roundabout in West London. The 25-year-old was praying for good news: that her unborn child conceived five weeks ago is growing normally. Half an hour later, eyes shining with excitement, Nela emerged onto the pavement clutching a scan picture of the healthy baby which will be born next spring. It was a joyous moment for Nela and her 24-year-old husband, Lucasz. No trust in the NHS: Nela and Lucasz were happy with their Saturday morning scan And all thanks to the surgery where last weekend, and every weekend, the doors were open wide for business. It's open from 9am till 11pm six days a week - and from 9am till 6pm on Sundays. On Saturday, the gynaecologist at the My Medyk clinic in Hanger Lane treated 15 other patients as well as Nela, the last at 9pm. The previous Saturday, he was even busier when 20 women came to see him. Clinic Manager Radek Przypis in one of the three dental treatment rooms at the My Medyk Polish Clinic in Hanger Lane As Nela, a private maternity nurse with impeccable English, who is settled in Britain, said as she proudly looked at the baby scan: "I think, personally, the NHS is rubbish. They told me I could not have a scan until I had been pregnant for 12 weeks. Three months is a long time to wait. Lucasz and I had a problem with a pregnancy in the past. I could not bear the worry of waiting to know if I was expecting again and all was well with this baby. I am registered with a GP in North London where I live. But if you have an infection the doctors there hand out penicillin, which was on offer 30 years ago and has been replaced by more modern antibiotics. Once, I went there and the GP looked at his computer and used the search engine Google to try to find out what was wrong with me. I do not trust the British state medical system. Among the English patients at My Medyk were Jannine Tasli, 25, a factory manager and her partner Scott Thomas, 32, an IT technician. They live in Northolt, West London, and heard of the surgery through a friend of a friend. Jannine is 25 weeks pregnant and the couple arrived just after 4pm for a scan of their unborn baby boy, due in three months. The couple had been worried because the pregnancy has been a difficult one. As Jannine explained, after the My Medyk scan showed her baby was thriving: "A mother is only allowed two scans on the NHS, at 12 and 21 weeks. In our case, the first scan was delayed and it was at 14 weeks, which worried us. We wanted to have this one, at 25 weeks, to make sure all was well. Smiling and happy, she added: "During the scan I saw our baby boy put his fists up and wave his hands about. It is so exciting and such a relief for us. The My Medyk clinic offers a lifeline to patients forced to use over-burdened hospital casualty departments at weekends, evenings and night times because their GPs no longer work out of hours. It has another branch in Ealing, also in West London, and will soon open up in the east of the capital. Set up in 2008 by two Polish doctors, it has 6,000 Britons among the 30,000 patients on its books, all attracted by same-day GP and specialists" appointments that last half an hour and cost £70 - far less than rival private medical services. There are family visit appointments: three patients including children for £190, ultrasound scans for £70, injections at £30 a time and stitches done by a surgeon for £45. The surgery's motto is "put patients first" and Radek Przypis, the manager, says the reason his doctors are so busy is that the NHS services are "so poor." The facts are indeed dismal. Two thirds of NHS patients now have to wait 48 hours or more for a GP's appointment and it is a rarity to find a local surgery open outside ordinary people's working hours. As a crisis of cash, bad management - and even the threat of entire hospital closures - engulfs our once-proud state health service, the sick are turning to casualty departments in desperation, and in increasing numbers, finding them over-stretched with waiting times of four hours for one in every 18 patients. In a few alarming cases, the particularly vulnerable sick and old have died in ambulances waiting outside in queues. Mr Carmel Said, 63, (right) a sculpture and model maker for the theatre and TV and Julie Mess, 35, (left) a dancer working in the West End, who are both patients of My Medyk Clinic A further problem for NHS patients is the waiting time to see a hospital specialist, because an appointment has to be authorised through a GP. Some cancer sufferers don't start treatment for two months after they first visit their doctor with suspected symptoms. This weekend the Labour Party claimed some life-saving checks in hospitals for cancer cases are also delayed because of increasing NHS chaos. No wonder, perhaps, that a new kind of private surgery offering quick appointments at a reasonable price is beginning to flourish. In central Manchester, the Green Surgery admits patients until 10pm seven days a week and will stay open until 3am if an emergency patient needs treatment. Kryzstof Zemlik, business development manager of the Green Surgery, also set up by Polish medics, said yesterday: "We offer appointments in a short time and they are a half an hour slot. If the examination takes longer, we let the appointment go on. The patient is the important thing to us. Now the English are coming to us too, as well as the Polish, Slovaks, Hungarians and Portuguese. "We are open every day of the year - the busiest are Saturday and Sunday when NHS GPs" doors are closed. We have a lot of demand for gynaecology and dentistry. Gynecologist Grzegorz Pospiech talks about his medical practice in West London State-of-the-art: Set up in 2008 by two Polish doctors, the clinic has 6,000 Britons among the 30,000 patients on its books We offer real quality and the cost is much less than many private medical clinics. We charge £60 for half an hour and if tests are needed we do them straight away. And back in London at My Medyk it is much the same story. I spent last Saturday talking to patients there. From early in the morning until the surgery closed, there was a stream of men and women, of all nationalities including English, Polish and Indian, arriving for appointments. Tomasz Ponk, a 32-year-old builder from Cricklewood, was at the clinic with earache soon after midday. "I got medication straight away when I saw the doctor," he told me as he left. I feel completely confident with the treatment here and I am quite happy to pay because it is not too expensive. He first used the surgery a few years ago when he found a strange lump on his body that turned out to be a tumour - his life could have been in danger without swift treatment. The surgery's doctors acted very quickly. They sent me for a scan and the op was done at an NHS hospital, which I was very pleased with. Jannine Tasli, 25, a general manager and Scott Thomas, 32, an IT technician from Northolt at My Medyk The My Medyk clinic offers a lifeline to patients forced to use over-burdened hospital casualty departments Mr Ponk has an NHS surgery near his home. But he avoids it after a doctor prescribed antibiotics for his two-year-old daughter at dosage more suitable for an eight-year-old. "I was worried they would make her ill, not make her well," he said. Next through the door of My Medyk are some more Polish patients, Piotr, 37, a builder and Anna, 35, an accountant, from West Acton. They did not want to give their surnames because their family do not know that Anna is 12 weeks pregnant and has been worried about her symptoms. Anna turned to the surgery, "because the NHS casualty departments are so busy at weekends and to see a local doctor takes weeks." Piotr adds: "We rang to see the gynaecologist here when Anna was concerned about the pregnancy. We asked for an appointment today and got it immediately. Now the doctor has told us there is nothing wrong so we are relieved and happy. Yet another delighted customer. But that's not surprising with the NHS in such deep trouble. One particular attraction of My Medyk and the Green Surgery is that - mimicking medical systems in Eastern Europe - a patient can book an appointment directly with a specialist doctor without the often grindingly slow process of being referred by a GP at an NHS surgery. Dr Grzegorz Pospiech the busy 58-year-old gynaecologist who treated so many patients on Saturday and who came to My Medyk in 2009 put it simply: "We follow the Polish way here - the patient can go straight to see a specialist without having to go through a GP or have lots of appointments beforehand. It helps to stop a patient worrying and he gets the right treatment fast. The surgery's manager Radek Przypis added: "All patients want is to come to one surgery that they know and get treatment fast from a doctor that they trust." If only the beleaguered NHS could provide the same level of service - for all our sakes.