The First Minister has said she hopes there will be cross-party support for looking at the idea of a national care service in the wake of covid-19.

It comes after MSPs from three different parties yesterday called for a national care service to be considered as a possible solution to some of the problems that have been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Labour’s Neil Findlay called for the system – in which a majority of residential care home places are provided by the private sector – to be “knocked down and rebuilt from the ground up”.

Speaking today in the Scottish Parliament, Ms Sturgeon said she had “huge sympathy” for the idea of national service.

“I think it is an example of how we need to be prepared to look at old ways of doing things and contemplate other and potentially better ways of doing things,” she said.

“There are huge challenges and complexities associated with that – none of us should underplay them – but there are reasons which will make us want to rethink how we have done things in the past.”

The First Minister added that despite the terrible nature of the covid-19 crisis, it did “offer opportunities to think about doing things differently” that should be “grasped with both hands.”

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