The ambulance service apologised last night after admitting it made the mistake which sent paramedics to the wrong town 50 miles away to treat a seriously ill girl.

The 14-year-old girl, who had collapsed with a friend after drinking vodka, stopped breathing while waiting for an ambulance crew to be sent to Mably Way in Grove near Wantage.

A member of the public called South Central Ambulance but the incident was passed over to the Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire service and a crew was dispatched to Grove in Leighton Buzzard, Beds.

As reported in the Oxford Mail, the girl, who was unconscious after downing vodka, had to be resuscitated by Police Community Support Officer Sue Harris. Paramedics finally arrived about an hour after the first call.

South Central Ambulance Service said it initially believed the mistake was caused by poor information given by member of the public making the emergency call.

But last night it admitted its control centre at Milton Keynes was at fault.

Spokesman Alison Brumfitt said: "We have now listened to the tapes and the ambulance was dispatched to the wrong Grove.

"It was our error, not the person who phoned in, and we are conducting an investigation.

"We won't know if it was human error or a problem with our technology until we complete our investigation. It could mean that our system could not distinguish between the two Groves, or it was wrongly entered.

"We apologise to everybody involved, the people on the scene who were obviously distressed, the girl who was involved for being put in this position and the parents who were obviously concerned that this situation was ever allowed to happen."

Oxfordshire's ambulance service merged with Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Berkshire in July 2006 to form South Central Ambulance Service.

Wantage MP Ed Vaizey has called for an investigation into how many ambulances have been sent to the wrong location since the merger.

The ambulance service does not keep such figures - an issue it says the investigation will consider.

Mr Vaizey said: "I am not convinced centralisation was not a factor in this case.

"The operator decided to send the ambulance to a different Grove, which implies a lack of local knowledge or an ability to override the system which is in place.

"I would like the ambulance service to put in place a system to monitor incidents like this because they may be rare, but to be frank, we are in the dark here and do not know how often this type of thing occurs."