Briarwood1000 is the ‘home’ website of Steve Hards, a residential landlord, writer, ex-webmaster and retired independent consultant.

Although from an early age I always wanted to do ‘art’, the pre-diploma year I spent at Cheltenham art college made me realise I was not much good at it! I then went on to qualify as a speech and language therapist and used my creative impulses to make therapy more interesting. So my first real career (starting in 1974) was in the NHS as a therapist and a manager but from 1990 I worked for the NHS Cambridge Community Health Unit, as board-level manager for contracting, planning and business development.

In 1992 I became an independent contractor in the UK health and social services sector and I remained self employed until I fully retired about 2010.

Between 1997 and 2005 my principal client was the UK Government’s Department of Health for which I managed numerous projects, including the Integration of Community Equipment Services (ICES). In 2004 I also organised the Telecare Policy Collaborative – a major experiment in policy development that brought together over 60 stakeholder organisations and companies. This lead to an interest in the field of telecare and telehealth and, as a result, I developed the world-authority news site on the topic, Telehealth & Telecare Aware which is now edited by New York-based Donna Cusano.

I also published two small graphics-oriented add-ins for PowerPoint for Windows, called Opazity and FillSlammer.

Contact Me

I can be contacted most easily by email.