Carers UK estimates 600 people a day quit jobs to care for loved ones and calls for review of benefits system

More than a million unpaid carers in the UK who look after disabled, frail or ill relatives are living in poverty, with one in 10 experiencing such extreme hardship they struggle to afford to eat regularly or heat their homes, new research shows.

Campaigners said carers – routinely lauded by politicians as unsung heroes whose sacrifices help prop up the NHS – were paying the price for “holding society together”, and urged ministers to act to fix “unacceptable” levels of hardship.