Cooper scraps plan to abolish NHS patient watchdog Healthwatch England after cross-party backlash

Health secretary Yvette Cooper has dropped a plan to abolish Healthwatch England, the independent body that represents patients in the NHS, following objections from MPs of different political parties.

Instead of being axed as part of the government's overhaul of the health service in England, the organisation will be kept and its role widened. It is the latest in a run of reversals by ministers on central parts of the health bill since Andy Burnham became prime minister in July.

Sources at the Department of Health and Social Care said the decision reflected Cooper's firm belief, shared by Burnham, in public and local accountability. Healthwatch England and its 150 local branches will carry on gathering and analysing patients' accounts of their experiences with the NHS and pointing to where services need to get better.

Cooper told the Guardian: "Patients need a voice in our NHS." She said she had always stressed the importance of people and communities having a say in local services, which was why she had promised to review all reforms in this area. "We will retain Healthwatch England and Local Healthwatch, while strengthening them to ensure patient voices are heard and can influence real change across health and care services," she said.

Gillian Merron, the health minister in the Lords, is due to confirm the change when peers debate the health bill. Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parliamentarians had all criticised the proposed abolition. Supporters in parliament argue the statutory body helps reveal where NHS care is falling short of patient needs and holds the service to account.

Healthwatch has earned respect for reports on problems such as shrinking access to NHS-funded dental treatment and waits of years for ADHD assessments. It has also highlighted weaknesses in how the NHS communicates with patients, including cases where people were told about appointments after the date had already passed.

Until now, the government had intended to move Healthwatch's functions into regional NHS integrated care boards and local councils. Under the revised approach, Healthwatch will take on a bigger part in spotting recurring concerns and showing where action is needed on quality, safety and patient experience. The Local Government Association had cautioned that abolition "risks [NHS] organisations being seen to mark their own homework" and could cause "confusion" for patients.

Ministers have also backed away from other elements of the bill. They have dropped plans to scrap the Health Services Safety Investigations Body, to end councils' automatic seats on integrated care board boards, and to remove the requirement for a nurse on every NHS foundation trust board. The reversals suggest Cooper is closely examining the legacy left by her predecessor, Wes Streeting, and discarding parts of the bill she considers misguided.

Thea Stein, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust thinktank and a former head of an NHS trust in Leeds, welcomed the decision. She said abolition "would have thrown away the independence that gave it credibility, without doing anything to address the reasons the NHS often don't listen." She called it "the wrong solution to a real problem" and urged a wider "cultural shift away from a health service where patients' voices are all too often at the bottom of a long and impossible list."