The Health and Social Care Bill's 'mangled remains' should be buried in an unmarked grave and left there, according to the BMJ.
It criticised the government for pursuing the reforms in a 'harebrained fashion' and claimed the Future Forum recommendations would leave the Bill unfit for purpose.
Writing in the Journal's editorial, Dr Tony Delamothe and Dr Fiona Godlee called for the reforms to the scrapped and instead demanded the focus be put on making the £20bn of savings deemed necessary.
"It would be better for the NHS, the government, and the people of England to sweep the amended Bill's mangled remains into an unmarked grave and move on," they said.
The authors argued that the most important problem facing the health service is the need to make £20bn of efficiency savings over the next four years and said this urgent issue is not being addressed.
And they repeated their question: "What is the rationale for the changes proposed in the Bill?"
Positive aspects of the bill could still remain, the authors noted, adding that Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, has acknowledged that legislation was not needed to implement some of the proposals, for example, primary care trusts could still be reformed to put GPs in the driving seat.
They concluded by saying that the message for future governments "that spot a once in a generation opportunity to reform the NHS" is that "only a handful of companies in the world exceed the £100bn turnover of the English NHS and none would have embarked on change in this harebrained fashion."
