The next stage would be to fly blood between the Welsh Blood Service headquarters in Talbot Green, Rhondda Cynon Taf, to the blood store in Wrexham.

It is estimated this could reduce travel time by about three hours.

After that, the project could move into linking up the blood stores with hospitals.

“What we’re trying to do is put corridors, motorways, A-roads for drones through Wales and once those have been put in place, then you could look at being able to support emergency responses within those same regions as well,” said Mr Howitt.

“Beyond the blood service, we’re also in discussion with the ambulance service about how these could support their 999 response.”

Mr Richardson said: “We’re very conscious that we’re an all-Wales service, but we are based in south Wales and at present our journeys to west Wales and particularly to north Wales are once a day, unless there’s an emergency.

“The idea of a drone is that instead of sending one large vehicle on a journey each day, we can send multiple small loads, so that improves the frequency, it reduces the wait time, and allows us to respond much quicker to the needs of the patients across Wales.”