Alice has been searching for a donor for four years

Alice Maddocks' mother Carol made national headlines when she challenged Mr Blair to provide better funding for the British Bone Marrow Registry live on television.

Alice, from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, suffers from a rare disorder called aplastic anaemia which reduces the amount of red and white blood cells in the body.

Despite a four-year search, the family has not yet found a donor with the perfect-match bone marrow she needs.

But the more people who join the register, the better Alice's chances are of a healthy life.

Mrs Maddocks vowed to hold the prime minister to his pledge to "look into the issue" on BBC One's Question Time in the run-up to the 2001 general election.

Carol Maddocks challenged Tony Blair on live TV

He announced extra funding for the service later that year, which has helped the registry to increase from 5,000 donors a year to more than 40,000.

On Wednesday, Alice presented Mr Blair with a book about her struggle to find a donor during a visit to his rooms in the House of Commons.

Her father, Dean, said: "It's been fantastic what has come out of Carol haranguing the Prime Minister on the telly.

"He agreed to meet us and agreed it was a problem and came up with the goods.

"Because of that, in three years, we are looking at an additional 90,000 donors and the National Blood Service, which runs the register, is hoping to improve on that.

"It's now the fastest growing bone marrow register in the world."

Mr Maddocks said his daughter had a very rare tissue type but the growing registry was improving her chances of finding a match.

He added: "She is doing pretty well at the moment on the medication and her condition is stable, but we don't want her staying on the drugs for the rest of her life, so we really need to find a donor."

The book, called For the Love of Alice, details her fight against the condition which leaves her vulnerable to illnesses such as pneumonia.