NHS England supremo Simon Stevens was asked to explain himself yesterday after campaigners looking into his employment record found he had lobbied for free trade agreements while working for a private healthcare firm.

As final agreement inched closer for hated EU-US trade deal TTIP yesterday Mr Stevens faced questions over potential conflicts of interest given his links to health giant UnitedHealth Group, which has lobbied for the NHS to be included in the agreement.

Mr Stevens had served as an executive of the US firm for 10 years before taking over at NHS England, including a five year stint as executive vice-president and president of the company’s global health division.

He was also a member of the Alliance for Healthcare Competitiveness (AHC), which general union Unite says has been vigorously promoting TTIP — which will allow corporate vultures to sue the government if it tried to stop an NHS carve-up.

While representing AHC, Mr Stevens told US newspaper Star Tribune in 2011 that a “demand for goods and services” across the world could “drive sales of American insurance, medical devices and record-keeping technology.”

In a furious letter to the beleaguered boss, Unite assistant general secretary Gail Cartmail grilled Mr Stevens over his involvement with the AHC and asked whether UnitedHealth had helped found the lobbying group while he was at the helm.

She also demanded that Mr Stevens come clean about his position on the inclusion of NHS services in TTIP.

“Do you agree with [AHC’s] position that the NHS should fall into the scope of the agreement, so that US investors like UnitedHealth can have new rights to sue the UK government if it takes privatised NHS services back into public hands?” she asked.

“Thousands of our members have genuine concerns that this trade deal will mean that the government’s current policy of giving private companies contracts to run vital NHS services could become impossible to reverse. I think they have a right to know exactly where you stand as the head of the NHS.”

Savaging his hypocrisy, she continued: “You are now head of NHS England, a state-owned and state-supported enterprise.”

“Yet it is clear that the AHC, an organisation that you acted as a spokesperson for, views healthcare providers like the NHS as an unwanted ‘market distortion’.”

On his LinkedIn social media page, Mr Stevens boasts that he “managed United Health’s international operations in 123 countries worldwide, including USA, Europe, India, China, Africa, Brazil and the Middle East,” leading “substantial M&A [mergers and acquisitions] and organic growth in global care and insurance services.”

He brags that the company is responsible for “managing over $150 billion (£98bn) of health care annually.”

Neither Mr Stevens nor NHS England responded to a request for comment yesterday.