The closure of King George Hospital’s A&E will definitely go ahead, according to clinical commissioning groups.

The statement comes as a team of councillors prepare to hand in a petition calling for plans to close the department to be abandoned in Downing Street on Friday.

A spokesman for Barking, Dagenham, Redbridge and Havering Clinical Commissioning Groups said there was no delay in plans to close the A&E at the Goodmayes hospital.

He said: “As commissioners we have always been very clear that planned changes to local hospital services will only go ahead once clinicians and independent experts agree it is safe to do so.

“That hasn’t changed and there is no delay to our plans.

“Those plans, to centralise A&E services at Queen’s Hospital, providing 24/7 A&E consultant cover for local people, will mean safer, high quality services for the benefit of patients and we continue to work with the trust to support them to make these changes safely.”

In May it was announced by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Redbridge Conservatives that the A&E would not close on December 2015 as planned and would remain open for the "foreseeable future".

Labour dismissed this as electioneering and now both parties are working together to get reassurance from the Department of Health that the closure will not go ahead.

Deputy leader of Redbridge’s Labour council Cllr Streeting and Conservative group leader Paul Canal will visit Downing Street on Friday.

But the dismissive nature of the statement from local commissioning groups will serve as a blow to the campaign.

Government targets call for less than five per cent of people to be waiting more than four hours to be seen at A&E.

But the most recent figures for week ending September 14 at King George and Queen’s hospitals show 14.3 per cent of patients have to wait more than four hours.