Scotland's pandemic Health Secretary has said the country "could have been better prepared" for Covid.
In a stop-start hearing at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, Jeane Freeman admitted there were areas in which NHS Scotland could have been more ready for the pandemic.
But she added there was not a plan that "would have been able to cope" with the virus.
Freeman also said Tory austerity measures had an impact on the health service and claimed that Scotland never ran out of personal protective equipment (PPE).
She was attending the hearing remotely on Wednesday afternoon. The first half an hour of the hearing had several breaks as Freeman's internet connection cut out several times during questioning.
Former Scottish Chief Medical Officer Catherine Calderwood, who resigned after breaking her own Covid rules, had also been due to answer questions but her hearing was postponed on Wednesday morning.
Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and former Deputy First Minister John Swinney will speak at the inquiry on Thursday.
Ex-MSP Freeman served as Health Secretary in the Scottish Government between 2018 and 2021.
She was asked by lawyer Kate Blackwell if "lessons hadn't been heeded, plans hadn't been updated, assumptions remained unchallenged and Scotland was not as prepared as it could have been."
Freeman replied: "There were certainly areas where Scotland could have been better prepared in terms of the underlying structure and the delivery of all those recommendations, but Scotland's like other countries around the world, was dealing with a virus, which was unknown and new.
"So in that sense, I don't believe there is a plan that would have been able, in and of itself, to cope with COVID-19."
Freeman also said Tory austerity in the build-up to the pandemic increased the challenges that NHS Scotland faced.
She said: "What has exacerbated the challenges is of course... how the Scottish budget is devised and therefore decisions of the UK Government in terms of public spending has a direct impact on the Scottish budget.
"The Scottish Government, of course, cannot borrow and cannot run in deficit.
"So the impact of the UK government decisions of about the 10 years, where they undertook policy of what has been described as austerity, had a direct impact on the Scottish Government budget.
"Notwithstanding that, the health budget and the budget for social care had increased year on year, but not necessarily increased sufficiently to meet with additional demands but also with other cost pressures around pharmacy, inflation and so on."
The Scottish Government has limited borrowing powers.
She added: "There was sufficient PPE at the start of the pandemic. Obviously, there were serious challenges throughout that. Although it's fair to say we came close on some occasions, we did not run out of PPE in Scotland."
This point was disputed by lawyer Claire Mitchell, who was representing the Scottish Covid Bereaved. She pointed to the Auditor General's report which said: "The pandemic PPE stockpile was not enough to fully meet the demands of the NHS".
Freeman said that the problems were with distribution rather than the amount of PPE that was available.
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