We know we have an ageing population, but when it comes to preparing for the future it seems we are, in fact, “woefully unprepared”.

In a new report, the House of Lords cross-party committee is calling for action. It cites figures from the Office for National Statistics which predict a 50 per cent rise in the number of over-65s and a doubling in over-85s between 2010 and 2030.

The committee says that unless the Government acts swiftly it can be expected to cause a “series of crises” in society and public services. The report calls on the Government to publish a white paper before the 2015 General Election setting out how the country needs to prepare for an older population.

Whichever party is in power after the election should set up two cross-party commissions to report within a year on action to be taken to get ready for an older society, it says.

One commission should work with employers and financial services providers to improve pensions, savings and equity release schemes, while the other should look at organisational and funding changes needed in the health and social care system.

Health and social care services will need a “radically different model” to look after people in their own homes and in the community and avoid needless hospital admissions, says the report.

The committee says the current NHS and care system is failing older people and is “inappropriate” to deal with the expected large increase in elderly people, a sizeable proportion of whom will have long-term health conditions. It also warned that for many people a longer life will worsen the existing problems of insufficient savings and pensions.

The committee recommends that older people should be able to carry on working for longer, with a gradual move into part-time employment replacing the current system of “cliff-edge” retirement at a particular age.

The Government should work with the financial services industry to tackle defects in defined contribution pensions so people understand better what income what they expect in retirement.

And official support should be given to the development of the equity release market, to allow home-owners to use their property assets to support themselves in old age.

Lord Filkin, chairman of the Lords Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change, says: “As a country, we are not ready for the rapid ageing of our population. By 2030, England will have double the number of people aged 85 and over than it had in 2010, and the large increase in our older population will have profound effects.

“The amazing gift of longer life is to be welcomed, but our society and politicians need to address the implications, and the changes needed to attitudes, policies and services so people are best able to benefit from it.”

Michelle Mitchell, charity director general at Age UK, says: "This House of Lords report is ground-breaking. It’s the first time a group of senior policymakers in this country has shown it grasps the scale and nature of change needed across our society in response to the gift of longer lives. The report lays down an urgent challenge to which we must urgently respond."

Pam James, chairman of the drop-in centre Open House for Seniors which meets at St George’s Hall in Bradford, says: “It is a problem and it has to be solved, however, we at the moment have spent far too much than we had so what do you do?

“I was brought up to look after myself all through my life and to certainly look to how I would look after myself in older age but I think we have become a bit of a nanny state where everybody expects to be looked after for nothing and we can not do that any more.”

Cyril Davies, chairman of the Keighley and Bradford Pensioners Association, doesn’t believe older people should be working longer.

“I feel that if people are working for longer when they get older there will be hardly any jobs for younger people. There is a need for us to remain retired at 65 and I think it wants to stay at that. I know they have altered it already but I don’t agree with it,” says Cyril.