In a damning report, which will be published in the coming week, a key MPs’ group comprising the cross-party Commons health select committee is likely to lash out against the NHS reform proposals highlighted in the government’s health and social care bill.

According to Observer, which has reportedly seen a late draft of the forthcoming report, the strong criticism of the NHS reform plans will apparently be rather disquieting for the government; more so as the committee publishing the report is headed by former Conservative health secretary Stephen Dorrell, and boasts a Tory and Liberal Democrat majority.

The most significant message which the report will put forth will be that Health Secretary Andrew Lansley’s across-the-board NHS restructuring plans and the proposed delegation of more power to general practitioners (GPs) will prove to be a big stumbling block in the direction of achieving the objective of achieving efficiency savings to the tune of £20 billion by 2014-15.

The report is a noteworthy reiteration of the widely-held opinion by medical experts that the proposed move to bring about a far-reaching structural overhaul of the NHS alongside the mammoth savings’ target was not a very prudent one.

With the draft report reportedly saying that the NHS restructuring process “continues to complicate the push for efficiency gains,” Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham urged the David Cameron government to reconsider its plans; and termed the report as “a damning indictment of the government's mishandling of the NHS.”