The head of Birmingham’s biggest hospital trust has warned the Government not to rush ahead with reforms to the health service, after David Cameron agreed to make major concessions on his plans for the NHS in England.

Julie Moore, chief executive of University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust, which runs the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Edgbaston, urged Ministers to take their time over reforms.

But she also praised the “bravery” of Mr Cameron and his colleagues for admitting they had made mistakes over the NHS.

Ms Moore was one of five people appointed by the Government to review controversial plans for the health service, after they provoked fierce opposition from the medical profession and patients’ groups.

As part of the NHS “Future Forum”, chaired by Edgbaston-based GP Steve Field, she travelled the country in a six-week “listening exercise” designed to give health workers a say over the changes.

Mr Cameron was forced to insist he had not made a “a humiliating U-turn” when he announced he had accepted the forum’s findings – even though it means sending the Government’s Health and Social Care Bill back to the Commons to be amended.

Speaking to the Birmingham Post, Ms Moore, a graduate nurse who has led the hospital since 2006, said the forum had been given complete independence to draw up its conclusions.

She said: “One of the biggest changes we have recommended concerns the pace at which everything was going, which didn’t give people a chance to get up to speed on things.

“The Government was proceeding down a very fast timescale. Sometimes when you are introducing change, you need to set a deadline to make sure people do hit it.

“But one of the things I have learned over the years is that health is a very complex organism, and actually if you fiddle with a little bit over here, something over there will creak not so long afterwards.

“And it was going too fast for people – a lot of health professionals were finding it hard to keep up to speed with it.”

It had been difficult for Mr Cameron to admit his government had made mistakes, she said.

“You set off down a path, and actually if you find after a time that it’s not going as well as you expected then you take stock and look at how you can do things better.

“It’s a very sensible way forward but I understand that for politicians it’s a very brave thing to do because people expect you to get it right first time.

“To press on regardless would have been foolhardy, and I think they did make the right decision.”

Along with other forum members, she was even invited into a meeting of the Cabinet in Downing Street to explain her findings – and how the Bill needed to be changed – directly to Ministers. But the work of the forum is not over, as the Government wants to keep it going to help oversee any future changes to the health service.

Changes the Government has agreed to introduce to the Health and Social Care Bill include:

* Bringing nurses and consultants onto the boards of new GP groups responsible for commissioning healthcare services;
* Stronger safeguards against a “market free-for-all”, with the regulator Monitor required to protect patient interests and not to promote competition as an end in itself;
* Additional safeguards against privatisation and to prevent private companies “cherry-picking” profitable NHS business;
* Dropping the 2013 deadline for the introduction of commissioning groups, which will only become operative “when they are ready”

The Prime Minister said he wanted to take the reforms forward in a “spirit of unity” with NHS staff.

In fact, he had been forced to turn to NHS figures such as Ms Moore for help, after the original reform proposals set out by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley provoked staunch opposition from healthcare professionals and patients groups.

The legislation also exposed fresh tensions within the coalition – with the Liberal Democrats’ spring conference voting against the plan to the fury of many Tory MPs, who broadly backed the reforms.

Mr Clegg poured oil on troubled waters by telling his MPs that the Lib Dems had succeeded in forcing the Conservatives to accept the changes.

Meanwhile, some Conservative MPs believed Mr Cameron had hung Mr Lansley out to dry, in order to appease his Lib Dem allies.

Announcing the changes to the policy at Guy’s Hospital in central London, Mr Cameron said: “The fundamentals of our plans – more control for patients, more power to doctors and nurses, and less bureaucracy in the NHS – are as strong today as they have ever been.

“But the detail of how we are going to make this all work has really changed as a direct result of this consultation.

“We have listened, we have learned, and we are improving our plans for the NHS. Ten weeks ago we paused our legislation. Today we show how we are improving.”

Mr Clegg, speaking with Mr Cameron standing beside him, suggested the Bill would be improved because the Tories are not governing alone.