Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, is facing a mutiny of NHS chief executives over plans to rush through health service reorganisation.

She decided in July to accelerate plans for a wave of mergers among England's 303 primary care trusts, the bodies responsible for spending about £54bn a year on commissioning care for NHS patients.

But a survey of trust chief executives, published today in the Health Service Journal, found widespread unrest. According to the magazine, 87% of respondents said the moves were "rushed", 72% found them "incoherent" and 65% "political". Other words of chief executives about the proposals included "crass, naive, ill-informed, destructive, knee-jerk, frantic and irresponsible".

The reforms are expected to reduce PCTs to about 150 and align NHS areas more closely to local government boundaries. The government hopes the mergers will contribute to a saving of £250m in costs.

But a majority of the chief executives objected to the speed of change. The journal's survey was based on replies from 86 of the 303 chief executives, a response rate of 28%.

· Seven of 31 foundation hospital trusts - the Peterborough and Lancashire teaching hospitals, Bradford, Stockport, Royal Devon and Exeter, Birmingham, and Homerton - got poor marks from their regulator yesterday in the first annual performance review.