We have published statistics on the performance of ambulance services across Oxfordshire not for the first time this week. We make no apology for repeating the exercise, however, for the statistics show a huge discrepancy between the service received in urban areas and that received in more rural areas of the county.

It is outrageous that the most rural area of the county, West Oxfordshire, should receive such a deficit in service.

The ambulance service easily meets its targets in Oxford and in many of the other most-densely populated areas of the county.

One cannot help feeling that in chasing its targets in the most easily accessible areas, the ambulance services is not giving those living in rural parts of the county the first-rate service they too deserve.

As we have been told before, it is not about ambulance stations because individual ambulances can be stationed almost anywhere there is a convenient area for parking.

If the ambulance trust was providing an equal service across the whole of Oxfordshire, then you would not expect to see such disparity across the postcodes.

Divisional director John Nichols says that where they are missing their times, it is only by seconds. If that is the case, then it should be easily remedied.