A ROW over a consultation on the future of Oxfordshire ambulance service has intensified, with ministers being urged to make a stand against "anti-democratic bureaucrats".

The results of the consultation on whether the county's ambulance trust should join a new super ambulance trust are being bitterly disputed, with opponents and supporters of the merger claiming success.

The former Mayor of Oxford, John Power, has written to Oxford East MP Andrew Smith, asking him to bring the issue to the attention of ministers. Mr Power, who served as a non-executive director of the county ambulance trust for seven years, insists the Oxfordshire consultation shows 55 per cent of those taking part to be against the county service merging with ambulance trusts in Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Royal Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.

Mr Power tells the MP: "When the Prime Minister talks about localism and patient choice he has my unswerving support. Yet below him the anti democratic bureaucrats are busy sabotaging those ideals. He goes on to accuse strategic health trust managers of using "Orwellian double speak" to disguise the real outcome of a consultation, which he says in Hampshire was 80 per cent against.

But Helen Robinson, spokesman for Oxfordshire Ambulance Trust, rejected claims that any decision had already been made to merge.