<p>In 1989 the government agreed that the number of hours worked by junior doctors was unacceptable and proposed to reduce them. Two years later, the ‘New Deal’ initiative was announced in the Caiman Report (DoH 1991). Although its central focus was junior doctors, this initiative also had implications for nurses. In order to meet the target of a 56-hour working week by December 1995, the report recommended that appropriately trained nurses should take on’ some of the activities or tasks which in the past had been considered part of the junior doctors’ remit.</p>