Oops, missed your question until just now. The impression I got from my friend/colleague is that nursing in the NHS is an innately conservative and rigid cultur

Oops, missed your question until just now. The impression I got from my friend/colleague is that nursing in the NHS is an innately conservative and rigid culture (as it is in other areas of healthcare), which goes to the heart of nursing's governing body in setting policy. Whilst nursing has expanded the scope of roles available in recent years (taking on prescribing responsibilities and increased specialisation), it perhaps might not have been at quite the pace or breadth as circumstances require. Consequently, some of the supporting roles that are more flexible, like technicians and healthcare assistants, have started to take on more routine tasks like simple obs and assessment; this makes sense because in most cases, taking blood, measuring lung function and hearing etc. are easy to do - the actual assessment and signing off of work is still done by a (more expensive and better utilised elsewhere) clinician.