David Cameron has staked his reputation on making a success of the coalition's controversial NHS shake-up as he signalled a series of major concessions.
The Prime Minister admitted his Government had "learnt a lot" from the storm of criticism that has engulfed the proposals and promised there would be no "sell-off" of services.
But he also insisted it had been right to "pause" the legislation and the debate had convinced people that the NHS did need radical reform to avoid "buckling" under increasing demands.
Labour leader Ed Miliband dismissed the intervention, in a speech at a central London hospital, as evidence of the "chaos and confusion" the coalition was wreaking on the health service.
The government is expected to unveil full details of its reworked health plans next week after the outcome of a consultation exercise is published.
However, Mr Cameron pre-empted the results by indicating that the overhaul would include involving hospital doctors and nurses - not just GPs - in commissioning.
It would also include scrapping the April 2013 deadline for consortia to take responsibility for commissioning, creating "clinical senates" to bring together healthcare professionals to oversee the integration of care over wide areas and giving health regulator Monitor a duty to promote integration.
The premier also sought to reassure critics that there would be no dogmatic pursuit of competition, private firms would not be able to "cherry pick" the most lucrative services to provide and targets on waiting times would be kept.
"Yes, we'll continue to measure how long people are kept waiting in A&E. Nurses and doctors said we should - and that's what we're doing," he said.
Earlier, Mr Miliband said the proposed shake-up would divert hundreds of millions of pounds away from patient care.
