NHS campaigners issued a stark warning to GPs yesterday to get behind the fight to save local hospitals or face carrying the can for the service’s collapse.

Local supporters swelled the ranks of 999 Call for the NHS marchers on the latest leg of their epic 300-mile journey from Jarrow to London.

As the marchers wound their way along the 14-mile route from Darlington to Northallerton, expert John Lister warned that GPs in England were sleepwalking into a massive NHS crisis.

Industry magazine Pulse reported on Monday that all contracts for local doctors’ surgeries face competitive tendering, opening up the prospect of a massive takeover by the private sector.

Community doctors have seen budgets slashed under the government’s £20 billion cuts programme but also face a big rise in workload as hospital services are axed across England.

A wave of retirements and difficulties recruiting new GPs has created growing concern about an impending shortage — and possible entry into the sector by private firms.

Dozens of practices have already told their patients that they are shutting up shop.

Mr Lister said that GPs were now wising up to the fact they’ve been made the fall guys.

“Everybody goes on about these apparently high salaries but the average working day for a GP is now 11 hours,” he said.

“They face an ever-increasing amount of paperwork. The government is reducing hospital services and expecting them to pick up the slack.”

But he added that only a “gallant few” had joined front-line opposition to hospital cuts.

“GPs need not just to fight proposals to put them out to private companies but fight against local hospital closures,” he said.

And he warned that turning to the private sector to make up the shortfall in doctors’ numbers would only force down quality as firms tried to squeeze out profits.

“What’s the private sector going to do that a GP can’t other than pocket money for shareholders?” he said.

“The only thing that could put things right is a change of government and a change of responsibilities.”