Patients and consumer groups today condemned plans to abolish the national body responsible for involving the public in the health service.

Scrapping the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (CPPIH) will leave the NHS unaccountable to the people it serves, according to campaign groups.

The health secretary, John Reid, yesterday confirmed that CPPIH, which oversees local patient forums, was one of the health service quangos which will be scrapped in a government drive to cut bureaucracy. The announcement followed a review of the work of "arm's length" NHS agencies, expected to save £500m.

Opponents of the CPPIH's abolition argue it will leave the 572 local patient forums in England without a national voice to raise concerns about patient welfare and influence healthcare policy.

Niall Dickson, the chief executive of healthcare thinktank the King's Fund, said: "I think the result is pretty shambolic. Abolishing the commission leaves the whole question of patient and public involvement in health in further disarray.

"If you want to try to put pressure on the healthcare system, there needs to be a national body that represents patients' views and represents the forums."

Frances Blunden, principal policy adviser for the Consumers' Association, said that in axing the commission without any public consultation, the government was ignoring the critical role CPPIH was set up to fulfil.

She said: "The government says that it wants to improve healthcare and make it more patient centred, but rather than properly consulting over the future of health quangos, all John Reid has done is wield his cost cutting axe."

But some patient groups and former members of community health councils (CHCs), which were replaced by patient forums, are not mourning the loss of CPPIH. They claim that it is too bureaucratic and has failed to provide real leadership to the local forums.

Simon Williams, director of policy at the Patients' Association, said: "It's got a budget of £33m a year. That's costing the taxpayer a lot of money to support 5,500 volunteers. I doubt very much that anyone will regret seeing the CPPIH go apart from the people working there."

Malcolm Alexander, chairman of the London ambulance service patients' forum, which covers five million people and is the largest of the patient forums, said the commission had been a "disaster".

He said: "There's a lack of infrastructure, money and public interface. We've gone from having moderately powerful to powerless local organisations."

Sharon Grant, the CPPIH chairwoman, defended the commission's track record. She criticised the government for pulling the plug before the CPPIH had had the chance to establish itself. She said its abolition left "a gaping hole" in public and patient involvement in the NHS.

Diane Gaston, of the National Consumer Council, said: "CPPIH hasn't really had time to assert itself. The government has put a lot of money into it then cut it off at the knees before it can get up and running. In terms of the arm's length review, that doesn't really seem to be an effective use of resources."