I was recently told by my boss that I could not take time off work to take my child to a hospital appointment.
Does any one know the law rearding this?

They was a new law passed for parents to request flexible working...

In order to make a request under the new right an individual will:

Be an employee;
Have a child under six, or under 18 in the case of a disabled child;
Have worked with their employer continuously for 26 weeks at the date the application is made;
Make the application no later than two weeks before the child's sixth birthday or 18th birthday in the case of a disabled child;
Have or expect to have responsibility for the child's upbringing;
Be making the application to enable them to care for the child;
Not be an agency worker;
Not be a member of the armed forces;
Not have made another application to work flexibly under the right during the past 12 months;

Since April 2003, mothers and fathers of children aged under six, or of disabled children aged under eighteen, have the right to apply to work flexibly and their employers will have a duty to consider their requests seriously. It will benefit both businesses and their employees. Flexible working arrangements enable employers to retain skilled staff and reduce recruitment costs, to decrease absenteeism, and to be more effective at reacting to changing market conditions. The Government wants flexible working arrangements to become available more readily to parents of young and disabled children. This new right will ensure that these parents have such opportunities.

However, this doesn't really cover an individual request for time off for a hospital appointment, but nevertheless I think your employer is being VERY unreasonable about it.

Have you offered to make the time up or use holiday...???

:)

As far as I know there is no statutory entitlement to time off to take dependents to scheduled medical appointments. However the first thing you need to do is check your contract of employment and check the company's policies and procedures/staff handbook. It may be that you company provides additional rights in this respect.

If your contract/handbook does not cover children's medical appointments then unfortunately I believe the only way open to you is through parental leave (qualifying conditions as described above). Parental leave is unpaid and you are entitled to up to 13 weeks before the child's 5th birthday, with no more than 4 weeks taken in any one year. However if you decide to go down this route then be aware that an employer can actually choose to delay any parental leave you have requested for up to 6 months (they might just do this out of spite because they know it will be no use to you!). Unfortunately if your child is aged 5 or older and isn't disabled then you are not entitled to parental leave.

Another avenue would be to look at how other employees have been treated in similar situations. If a precedent has been set with someone else being allowed time off in similar circumstances then you may have more leverage in your own case.

There is a legal right to reasonable time off for emergencies regarding dependents, but unfortunately a pre-scheduled medical appointment is not covered by this, it's only things like sudden illnesses/hospital visits, or breakdown in care arrangements, etc.

Good luck with this - it certainly sounds like your boss is being a jobsworth. What's your attendence been like? Have you had much time off for other appointments or time off sick? If not then highlight this to your boss. Also try making the request in writing - sometimes employers are more reluctant to refuse requests such as this if it is in writing and their refusal will be kept on file for all eternity!