Another of the arm's-length bodies set up by the Department of Health (DoH) has decided to spurn the name it was given by ministers.

First, the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection rebranded itself as the Healthcare Commission. Now a new organisation has chosen to call itself Monitor.

If you don't know which it is, you may find it hard to guess. With school milk monitors in mind, could it be an educational or nutritional body? Or perhaps, recalling the Monitor that was BBC television's pioneering cultural flagship, we may assume a more artistic mission?

Surely a departmental body would not call itself after the long-necked tropical lizard that was once believed to give warning of crocodiles?

In fact, all of these suggestions are wrong. Monitor, which has recently moved into new premises at Matthew Parker Street in Westminster, started life in April as the Independent Regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts.

It is perfectly understandable that William Moyes, its chairman, may have found that title cumbersome. Even the initials are a mouthful.

But there has been much head-shaking at the DoH about the alternative Moyes has chosen. "The regulator is not there to 'monitor' foundation trusts - strangely enough, he's there to regulate them," bemoans one official.

A spokesman for the rebranded organisation says: "Monitor is our new name for everyday usage. It is a simple description and a clean identity. The name Monitor was chosen because it describes our function and it is short and memorable. Independent Regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts remains our statutory title."

The new logo is less perplexing than some. It uses the word Monitor, with a sky blue arc linking the i and the r. Apparently, the intention was to reinforce the i for independent and r for regulator.

There is probably good money to be made in working out this kind of stuff. The organisation used a firm of branding consultants known as The Team to devise the new moniker, but remains coy about how much was spent.