[ajb]

UK central fuse boxes don't have a fuse/RCD per socket. For example, mine has common ones for the kitchen, downstairs sockets, upstairs sockets, and all lighting -separate ones only for the boiler and cooker.

The wiring system was designed during world war II when there was a copper shortage and someone calculated that it used less to use larger conductors to several sockets than to run smaller individual ones to each socket.