AN ailing health board requested an extra £11.5million in bailout loans from the Scottish Government on top of other crisis payments.

NHS Tayside, which covers the Dundee patch of Health Secretary Shona Robison, received a much lower sum after being allowed to pocket the profits of asset sales.

Scottish Labour Health spokesperson Anas Sarwar MSP said: "The fact the health board is begging for more than £16m shows how serious the situation is.”

NHS Tayside’s financial problems were laid bare in a report by Audit Scotland last year which focused on the body’s finances for 2015/16. At the time the watchdog revealed the board would have to make savings of £175m over a five-year period to be financially stable.

The prospect of making long-term cuts is further complicated by the fact that NHS Tayside owes Ministers over £33m in “brokerage” repayments. These sums – essentially bailouts – were made to help the board break even and live within its means.

Around £13.2m in brokerage was doled out by the Government last year and £5m was made available in 2015/16.

However, correspondence between the Government and NHS Tayside shows that the board initially wanted the sum to be much higher than £5m in that year.

In April 2016, a civil servant emailed a staff member at the board: “The NHS Tayside Board has requested up to £16.5m of additional brokerage in 2015-15.”

The same email outlined how that sum could be chiselled down, such as allowing the board to hold onto the £4.6m of proceeds from disposals relating to Perth and Ashludie.

The board also benefited from a retrospective change in funding for “injury benefit”, a move that gave NHS Tayside around £5.6m.

Another £1.1m became available in relation to annual leave savings, all of which whittled down the £16.5m request. Weeks later NHS Tayside made a formal bid for brokerage of £5m.

A second document confirmed that NHS Tayside has pencilled in another £4m in brokerage in this financial year.

Scottish Conservative shadow health secretary Donald Cameron said: “This is further evidence of the SNP’s gross mismanagement of our health service.

“NHS Tayside has continually faced significant financial challenges at a time when it can least afford it. People will rightly be raising questions about the SNP’s ability both to distribute funding appropriately and to run an effective NHS.”

Sarwar added: "The SNP's treatment of NHS Tayside has been atrocious – and that's despite the fact it is in the Health Secretary Shona Robison's backyard.

“Sadly NHS Tayside is not a unique case. We already know that health boards across Scotland will have to make over £1bn of cuts over the next four years.

A spokesperson for NHS Tayside said, “NHS Tayside requested £5m of brokerage on May 17, 2016 to conclude the accounts for the financial year 2015/16. This formal request was made following continuous discussions with the Scottish Government over the course of 2015/16 and ongoing dialogue in the latter months of 2015/16 relating to a number of areas.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “NHS Tayside applied a range of planned measures to deliver its year end position in 2015-16. This reduced the board’s savings challenge from £16.5 million to £5 million. NHS Tayside formally requested brokerage of £5 million in 2015-16, and the Scottish Government agreed to provide this level of support. This request followed dialogue between NHS Tayside and the Scottish Government, which was held routinely throughout 2015-16.”