The Conservatives are deliberately trying to undermine public confidence in the NHS, the health secretary has claimed.
Patricia Hewitt said she "did not recognise" Tory predictions of 25,000 NHS job losses as a result of the current financial crisis, which is expected to see the health service's deficit reach £800m.
Figures on NHS manpower would show an increase of more than 30,000 posts over the past 12 months, she said, accusing David Cameron of playing a "dangerous game" by voting against extra money for the health service while demanding improvements in services.
The Conservative leader's promise to 'share the proceeds' of economic growth between public services and tax cuts would be "disastrous" for the NHS, she told BBC1's Sunday AM, though she conceded the government still had "more to do".
But Hewitt insisted that the 2,000-plus job cuts announced over the past week at hospitals from Stoke-on-Trent to Durham, Kent, Plymouth and north London, were in large part due to changes in working patterns, including increased use of day surgery and treatment in the home.
Challenged on predictions that the total number of posts lost could reach 25,000, Hewitt said: "That figure has come from the Conservative Party, and I have to say that I think David Cameron and the Conservatives are playing a very dangerous game here.
"I think what we are seeing is a deliberate attempt to undermine public confidence in the NHS.
"David Cameron and the Conservatives voted against the increases that we made in the NHS.
"They are now pretending that the NHS can have some kind of blank cheque, but at the same time Mr Cameron has committed them to a new economic policy that says year in, year out, there will be cuts in public spending which would be disastrous for the NHS."
Hewitt rejected suggestions that overall NHS manpower was now falling after years of growth.
"When the figures come out for the last 12 months, we will see further increases, I suspect over about 30,000 more staff in the NHS," she said.
"That is why, of course, we are able to treat so many more patients and save so many more lives than we were doing before."
Hewitt said that NHS managers who have announced job reductions in hospitals around the country were adjusting their staff headcount in response to new, more efficient, ways of working.
"They want to cut the number of agency staff and temporary staff," the health secretary said.
"They want to have reductions in jobs through natural wastage, because as they make themselves more effective - with more day surgery, for instance - they can treat patients better and faster, and in some cases with fewer staff."
