Leicestershire and Rutland's health system has received an £80m bailout from the government to ensure it can continue to pay suppliers. 

The LLR Integrated Care system has been in the red to the tune of £80m, which has now been covered by the NHS, but will have to be paid back in the coming years. The health providers which make up the system, such as the Leicestershire hospitals, which will also receive less funding in future. 

The ICB is one of 31 across the country which received the bail out agreed by NHS England this summer.  

The largest amount of the deficit relates to the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust – which runs three hospitals in the country – which had a deficit of £64.9m. The integrated care board, which commissions the area's health services and is led by chief executive Caroline Trevithick, had overspent this year by £24.1m. The Leicestershire – which provides menthol health and community nursing services – had zero deficit. 

The system had at the start of the financial year aimed to have a deficit of £55m but has not managed that. 

Rutland Memorial Hospital is included under the Leciester Leciestershire and Rutland intergrated care board (Photo: Nub News)

A spokesperson for the LLR ICB said: "This is the first year that the ICB has a planned deficit for the year and as such the first year in which the ICB has been eligible to receive deficit support funding.  

"The funding is cash backed which means rather than having a shortage of cash due to the deficit that additional cash is available to the ICB (up to the size of the agreed deficit) to support making timely payments to healthcare providers." 

The debts will be paid off by the trusts that accrued them and they have three years to do so, subject to a 0.5 per cent cap of their annual funding allocation. If they stick to the repayments any outstanding balances will be written off after three years. 

An NHS England spokesperson said: "NHS England has provided cash to cover the agreed and planned for system deficit for a number of NHS organisations so there is adequate cover for their planned expenditure. It is part of the annual planning process with repayments to be made in line with published business rules. The amount to be repaid is relative to the total allocation of the ICB and is capped so as not to overly burden the system in any one financial year. It is not subject to interest." 

However, in spite of the £80m bail out, according to a report to be discussed by the UCB board on Thursday (December 12), there is a £1.3m deficit already built up since the bailout (at month seven of the financial year). 

In October, the ICB's chief finance officer Robert Toole said the situation was 'very challenging' and said there had been a 'stop and pause' on some projects, some contracts were being reviewed and service specifications would be looked at. The LLR ICS spends just under £2bn each year.