NHS chief defends 'head of brand' job The NHS logo on a sign. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Getty Images The NHS chief executive has defended the appointment of a highly paid "head of brand" and claimed the move would help ensure that private healthcare firms treating NHS patients gave the best possible care. Sir David Nicholson denied that the post - with a salary of £77,079 to £97,478 - was a "frivolous" waste of money given the NHS's cash squeeze and pay freeze for staff. Appearing before the Commons health select committee, he said the job had created controversy because of its "rather unfortunate" title. But he said the position was necessary to help ensure that the growing number of private healthcare providers working in the NHS "understand what it means to be part of the NHS ... the culture and the values, and treat their patients accordingly." He said the head of brand would also protect the service's distinctive blue and white logo from unwarranted use. "It's really important to us and for patients to know that these organisations are signed up to these values and principles," Nicholson said. A spokeswoman for the new NHS Commissioning Board, which will take over much of the day-to-day running of the service in England from next April, and which Nicholson will lead, said: "The NHS is changing and improving, and any organisation involved in patient care must understand and demonstrate the culture and values of the NHS as set out in the NHS constitution, and treat our patients accordingly. We also have a duty to ensure our patients are never misled by inappropriate use of the NHS logo. When the post was first advertised in September, Dr Eoin Clarke, a blogger and critic of the coalition's NHS policies, wrote: "This confirms the worst fears of NHS activists that the future intentions of the Tories is to run down the NHS to such an extent that all which will remain will be a 'kitemark'." The post has since been filled, the spokeswoman confirmed. The Labour MP Grahame Morris, who sits on the health select committee, has questioned the move at a time when many NHS staff are losing their jobs. "This at the same time as more junior management jobs are being axed and the loss of many clinical roles, particularly 6,000 nurses," he said. But Jon Restell, chief executive of the Managers in Partnership union, which represents about 6,000 NHS managers, has defended the post and salary involved. Any organisation, commercial or public service, must be deadly serious about branding and communication. The salary at shy of £100k is a very, very good one but to look after the interests of a £100bn organisation- and our NHS at that - it is hardly crazy money," he said. Meanwhile, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has said the Department of Health's first mandate to the commisisoning board represents "the end of top-down political micro-management of the NHS" by ministers and the start of a new era in which managers and doctors take key decisions. The 28-page mandate sets out in broad terms what ministers want the NHS to concentrate on in 2013-14, such as reducing early death from the big killer diseases and improving older people's care, but does not prescribe exactly how they should do that. Hunt said it was a big departure from the "failed" Labour approach of "constantly bombarding [the NHS] with new targets, new directions, new priorities." Despite the change, the health secretary will in future "retain ultimate control and will set the direction of the NHS, but not be micro-managing everything. He's still accountable," a health department spokeswoman said. The British Medical Association said the mandate was "an encouraging strategic vision for the NHS" and praised Hunt's "welcome reduction in targets, objectives and micro-managing." A spokesman said: "This is an opportunity for the secretary of state to end the top-down management of the NHS. It is encouraging that the NHS mandate is focused on providing strategic priorities rather than prescriptive targets and objectives.