DRUNK clubbers who get into fights or injure themselves in Oxford this Christmas will be able to take advantage of a special 'jumbo-sized' ambulance parked in the city centre.

South Central Ambulance Service has announced it will park its 'jumbulance' in Bonn Square every Friday and Saturday night (10.45pm to 5.15am) from now until Sunday, February 2.

There will even be a special bonus service on New Year's Eve – Tuesday, December 31.

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The Oxford SOS service is designed to help the NHS and the other emergency services cope with the peak winter demand.

The ambulance service, which has run the service in previous years, confirmed it would be running again this year after NHS England agreed to provide funding as part of its Alcohol Intoxication Management Services.

Project lead Craig Heigold said: "We know that at this time of year, the SOS Service is always highly valued not just by our own ambulance service, but also by our colleagues at the hospitals and the police.

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"When all the emergency services are under the most pressure over the winter period, the SOS Service helps ensure that there are more of our ambulances available, that there are less people at A&E on busy weekend nights and that our police colleagues are not unnecessarily tied up dealing with medical incidents in the city centre."

Last winter during a shorter phase of operation from its Cornmarket base, the SOS team saw 54 patients asking for help.

Of those, only 16 required further treatment or assessment at the John Radcliffe Hospital, meaning that the SOS team was able to deal with over two thirds of those patients at the scene who might otherwise have gone to A&E or called 999.