It was something we always feared when the Government regionalised our public services.

An ambulance called to an emergency at Grove, near Wantage, was despatched to a park in Grove at Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire.

This was one of the worries expressed by critics of the plan to abandon county ambulance services and base them on regions.

Oxfordshire was absorbed into a huge area with Berkshire, Hampshire and Buckinghamshire, with calls handled at Milton Keynes.

Staff who have carried out preliminary investigations appear to be putting the blame on the person or persons who made the emergency call.

But it seems inconceivable that someone ringing for an ambulance at our Grove would tell an operator that he or she was speaking from Grove, Leighton Buzzard.

When the grand plan for our ambulance service was announced, we were assured that with the technology available, there would be no problem directing ambulances to the right location.

Similar fears were expressed when plans were announced to handle fire calls regionally.

As far as the ambulance service is concerned, the assurance was clearly wide of the mark.

Had the service been controlled locally, as before, it is unlikely, if not impossible, that such a mistake would have been made.

However competent they are, controllers at Milton Keynes cannot possibly know as much about Oxfordshire as their former colleagues based at Headington.

There is no substitute for local knowledge.

We hope the investigation being launched by ambulance bosses will be thorough, and not try to blame someone else.

Thanks to the efforts of a Police Community Support Officer, the mistake in this case had no serious consequences.

Next time, the patient might not be so lucky.