The University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL) has �3m leftover this financial year and is transfering it to the county's primary care trusts.

It will help them to break even at the end of the financial year.

The money originally came from the PCTs and was given to the hospital trust to fund patient treatment.

Extra workload

Hospitals are allloted money from the government based on the number of patients they see - and as a result the UHL trust should end the financial year �3m in the black.

Peter Reading, chief executive of UHL said: "We agreed the budgets with the primary care trusts to treat a certain number of patients.

"They said they would send us fewer patients this year than last because they were going to put in place closer to home initiatives in community hospitals, primary care and so on.

"Also, there were expectations that more patients would be treated in the independent sector under the government policy to give patients more choice.

"As it turned out these new measures have taken longer to implement than expected with the result that we've treated more patients than expected at the beginning of the year."

He said the delays mean the PCTs had to fund more hospital treatment than was expected at the time budgets were drawn up.

The cash will be go to the authority which will then distribute it to the primary care trusts.