A lack of engagement with social care cost lives during the pandemic, the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry has been told.

Donald Macaskill, chief executive of Scottish Care, said the failure to include anyone with frontline experience in social care in decision-making had “cost many people their lives”.

Macaskill said: “I have thought very carefully about what I’m about to say: I am absolutely convinced that the lack of engagement and involvement in planning the early stage of the social care sector in anything upward than presence… that lack did and sadly cost many people their lives, both staff and people who were residents in our care homes and citizens in our communities.”

The Scottish Care leader said comments by then health secretary Jeane Freeman on 5 May 2020 that some care homes were not following guidance was “unhelpful”.

He said care home staff had been “victimised and bullied” during the pandemic, adding the Operation Koper investigation into care home deaths during the pandemic, had “broken” staff.

Mackaskill said: “Tragically, it has resulted in individuals – and where as there is never one reason for somebody to take measures to harm themselves, I know personally there have been a number of individuals from whom investigations as part of Operation Koper, even having to fill out the 27 questions per death for each resident when you maybe lost 10 in the space of a week, even that process has broken them.

“There is a complete imbalance and I think personally it is a real stain on the justice system in Scotland that this disproportionate action still remains against a workforce who by vast majority tried to do their best.”