Your AED training could come in use on more occasions than you may have realised if plans to deliver defibrillators by drone come into effect.

There have already been trials done of delivery of defibrillators by drone in Sweden, which have shown some promise.

Speed is of the essence for people suffering a heart attack and using a drone has been shown to get the lifesaving equipment to people up to 16 minutes quicker than emergency services can get to a person, the pilot in Sweden showed.

Carried out near the Swedish capital of Stockholm, the researchers from the Karlininska Institutet showed than the drone could be used by the emergency services, being controlled and guided using GPS and cameras.

“Saving 16 minutes is likely to be clinically important. Nonetheless, further test flights, technological development, and evaluation of integration with dispatch centres and aviation administrators are needed,” the authors of the report told the Daily Mail.

Drones have been deployed for a wide range of jobs including surveying bridges in the construction industry to see if they need fixing, through to being used for researchers to carry out surveillance in hard to reach areas.

This instance is not the first time that drones have been used to help the emergency services.

They have for example already been deployed by fire services in this country, to allow the service to investigate the spread and severity of a fire safely.

Manchester fire services specifically uses them at night, to see in the dark.