THE NEW procedure is called intra-arterial thrombolysis, and involves sending a new type of drug called Alteplase through a guide wire threaded into the groin, along the body's main arteries and into the brain.

It allows the doctors to watch on a television monitor as they position the drug smack in the centre of the blood clot that has caused the stroke.

The treatment differs from the traditional intravenous method of injecting drugs into the arm and letting the blood stream carry it as close as possible to the clot.

But for it to work, the clot has to be in a specific location in the brain stem and the stroke must only have taken place no more than four to six hours earlier.

The University Hospital of North Staffordshire was granted permission to pioneer the system as it is already winning plaudits for having among the highest survival rates from strokes in the UK.

Only 11 per cent of stroke patients at the hospital die and the average time people spend in hospital recovering is just 11 days.