The number of over-65s acting as a carer for a relative has topped two million for the first time, Age UK has warned.

The charity said that 2.29m people of retirement age in England provided care in the year 2015/16 – 16 per cent higher than the 1.83m who did the same five years earlier.

The figure suggests that more than one in five over-65s acted as a carer at some point during the year, and they provided 54m hours of unpaid care in England in 2016.

More than 400,000 of them were over 80, and this oldest age group provided 12.7m hours of care per week during the year, the research found.

The Harts are among the 6.5 million full-time carers in Britain who are featured in a photography exhibition next week in the members lobby at the Scottish parliament.

The photos are taken by the renowned documentary photographer Chris Steele-Perkins, who has spent a large part of his career photographing people who are in, or are providing, care.

“Caring is an activity that usually goes on behind lace curtains and a front of stoicism,” he says. “I was conscious that caring situations are very rarely depicted. I had seen photographs of people smiling gamely for the camera, but few that considered the relationships involved.

“I want to document these issues because they are fundamentals of the kind of society we live in,” he adds

Three in five of us will become carers at some point in our lives

The exhibition, This is Caring, is commissioned by Carers UK to celebrate 50 years of the charity.

It calculates that by 2037, there will be a 40% rise in full-time carers to 9 million, mainly because people are living longer. As a result, three in five of us, the charity suggests, will become carers at some point in our lives.

“We are at a tipping point,” says Heléna Herklots, chief executive of Carers UK. “We will soon see the number of people needing care outstrip the number of family members able to provide it.”

Girls aged 15 today will dedicate more than nine years of their lives to caring for their loved ones, an official study has found, leaving them facing a heavier burden of care than any other generation.

With an ageing population more people are dependent on family members to look after them and the burden is falling disproportionately on women, especially those in their 50s who are spending 20 per cent of their lives caring for others, a new analysis of the 2011 Census by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) has found.

Whilst the amount of care a person will have to provide differs between regions, the figures show that a 15-year-old girl in Britain today can expect to spend 9.3 years of her life, more than 13 per cent, providing unpaid care, whilst a teenage boy will spend 7.1 years, 11 per cent of his future, looking after others.

Women aged 50, who bear the biggest burden of care in England and Wales, will spend 5.9 years, just over 17 per cent of the rest of their lives, caring for free, while their male counterparts will spend 4.9 years, almost 16 per cent.