The Financial Times reported that Prime Minister Gordon Brown cut the capital budget for the English NHS from £6.2 billion to £4.2 billion in one of his last acts as Chancellor.

Tories accused Mr Brown of "letting down" the NHS by voicing support for it in public but sneaking through cuts in the small print of his budgets.

But the Treasury said that there had been no cut in cash available for capital projects.

The reduced figure reflected the NHS's actual anticipated spending over the year, and any underspend will be carried forward to be used in later years, said a spokesman.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson insisted the promised money was still going into the NHS, saying "the investment is there".

Mr Johnson was speaking on his first hospital visit in his new job, joining Mr Brown to highlight a 47% cut in the MRSA superbug in Kingston Hospital in south-west London over the past year.

He described claims that the English capital budget had been cut by a third as "inaccurate", adding: "The extra investment is going in".

Mr Johnson appeared to indicate that there may be some let-up in the pace of reform in the NHS in order to address a morale problem in some parts of the service.

"There has been a lot of change in a fairly short period of time," he said, adding that he wanted "to listen to people". But he said there was an "awful lot of optimism around" and a huge amount of good feeling due to investment.