Around 200,000 Scots are currently registered as blood donors on the Scottish National Blood Bank.

While an estimated 140,000 donors could meet the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service recruitment criteria to become a bone marrow donor, only 11,000 blood donors (5.5%) are also registered on the SNITS bone marrow registry.

Mrs Butler, whose daughter Aimee is a cancer patient, believes blood donors could hold the key to a new life for ill children who desperately need a bone marrow transplant.

A similar national awareness campaign in England by the National Blood Bank, funded after the personal intervention of Prime Minister Tony Blair, is successfully boosting the numbers of bone marrow donor numbers.

Mrs Butler believes increasing the number and diversity of bone marrow donors recruited from within the ranks of blood donors, and a new fast track for blood donors who also want to be bone marrow donors, could give seriously ill children the chance to benefit from medical advances.

She says, “My daughter Aimee has certainly benefited from regular blood and platelet transfusions during her cancer treatment — a need that will continue and increase in the months ahead as she undergoes a bone marrow transplant.

“Even with the risks associated with a bone marrow transplant she is one of the lucky ones to have found a potential donor from the blood banks.

“I would urge the Scottish Executive to back a similar high-profile campaign to that being run in England without delay to encourage more Scots blood donors to join the SNBTS bone marrow donor registry.”

Kate Maclean MSP, who is backing Mrs Butler’s campaign, said, “I am contacting the Health Minister to urge him to meet with Rosie Butler and myself to hear first hand concerns about the current system and how it can be improved.

“I think the Scottish Executive has a moral duty to ensure those who would benefit from a bone marrow transplant are given the best possible chance of finding a suitable donor.”

In Aimee’s case, doctors searched across 50 or so international bone marrow registries and, against the odds, succeeded in finding an unrelated matched donor. Along side having access to a wide and diverse pool of donors, timing is also critical since children with the disease face the risk of developing serious life-threatening infections or a worsening of their disease, which could deny them the benefits of a bone marrow transplant.”