TWO security guards have quit their jobs at a new super hospital in protest at the "totally inadequate" protection given to staff and patients.

The former soldiers said patients and staff were being put at risk because the number of guards on duty was not enough to safely cover the new Royal Blackburn Hospital.

Bobby Corbally, 22, of Perrone Crescent, Blackburn and Kevin Peacock, 27, of Accrington Road, Blackburn, walked out while on duty last week and were subsequently fired.

They spoke out after a security guard was assaulted at the £113million hospital at the weekend.

Today a spokesman for East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust said they were confident that the number of staff provided a sufficient level of security on the site.

But Mollie Manthorpe, chairman of the patient and public involvement forum, said: "Patient and staff safety is of the utmost importance and since the hospital is now twice the size you would think they need more staff than they have now."

The new hospital has 16 security guards but only four on duty at one time - the same number that patrolled the much smaller Queen's Park Hospital, which was previously based on the site.

A similar number of guards, previously employed through a contractor to patrol Blackburn Infirmary, were not retained when the hospital closed.

Mr Corbally, who was a shift supervisor, said: "As a security officer you should have due care and attention responsibility for visitors, patients and staff and we just weren't able to do that."

Mr Peacock, a father-of-one, said: "What happens if you are dealing with someone in A&E and there is a personal attack on the other side of the hospital?"

"It was affecting my health. I'm not prepared to be seriously injured because I don't have back-up."

The guards, who served together in the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, spoke out amid rising concern about hospital violence.

During the 12 months from April 2005 there were 83 physical assaults and 132 incidents of verbal and threatening behaviour against staff.

Security staff are instructed to have one member of staff at the control base in the main hospital entrance, two on patrol and one in A&E.

But Mr Corbally said he placed three guards in A&E on his shift, from 7pm to 7am, to combat attacks by violent and aggressive patients.

He said: "No-one should be on their own. If there are two blokes you are outnumbered.

"The hospital is three quarters of a mile long and with your body armour on it can be very tiring running there.

"It is two merged hospitals but they are using the same amount of staff that they had for one. It can't be done.

"You can be the hardest bloke in the world but you can't take five people on."

The hospital security service is run by Haden Building Management Limited, a wing of the private consortium which built the hospital.

The firm declined to comment, although a spokesman for the Trust - which will buy back the new hospital over the next three decades - insisted there were no health and safety issues relating to this decision.

He said the two were sacked because they had left their post without authorisation.

He added: "The four members of security staff on site are in addition to our own Trust Security Manager and we are confident that together this provides a sufficient level of security on the site."

And he said there were a range of other security measures in place including a CCTV system, two way radio communication between all security staff and a bleep response system for staff to call for help.

He confirmed: "There was an incident in A&E on Saturday night involving an assault on a security guard.

"This is subject to a police investigation so we are unable to comment further."