A small German trial has suggested that ambulance units could halve the time it takes to get vital drugs to patients, pills that are only effective in the first four and a half hours after a stroke has taken place.

The drugs are not proving effective for all candidates however, so further assessment is needed rapidly, but this is nevertheless being hailed as a step forward.

Thrombolytics are drugs used in 80% of stroke cases, whenever a stroke is due to a blood clot. But they are not helpful when it is due to bleeding in the brain. In the German test area, focusing on 100 patients, the time to get these essential drugs to patients was reduced from around 75 minutes to around 35.

New studies are now needed to see if this system is applicable to all areas, not just heavily urbanised.

Strokes are the third biggest cause of death in the UK, but since the introduction of a National Stroke Strategy in 2007, care has been improving steadily.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health told the BBC, "The results of this study are interesting, but we would need more evidence on whether mobile stroke units would be a clinical and cost effective addition to NHS stroke services.

"In some instances, it could be just as quick or quicker to get the patient to hospital in an ambulance as it would to get a mobile stroke unit to the patient."