The leadership hopeful also supported setting up an independent inquiry to look at a “radical” overhaul of the NHS – while stressing it must remain free at the point of need.

Elsewhere, she warned against throwing oil and gas “to the wind” and spoke of the need to avoid “cliff edges in policy”, in a series of comments that mark a clear break from Nicola Sturgeon’s approach while in Bute House.

Ms Forbes, who is currently the finance secretary, is one of three candidates vying for the top job, alongside health secretary Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan, a former minister.

Speaking during an event hosted by the think tank Reform Scotland, Ms Forbes addressed the disastrous start to her campaign, which saw her widely criticised for her socially conservative religious views.

The MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch found herself at the centre of a media storm after saying she would not have voted for gay marriage. Ms Forbes said: “I suppose I was more focused on how to try to be honest, knowing the avalanche of unhappiness that would cause, perhaps, rather than trying to seek to spin or prevaricate.”

She said she was “extremely torn” about running in the leadership race because of her faith, later adding: “I guess what stunned me was just the scale of it.”

Ms Forbes said the National Care Service needed to be a “Scotland-wide initiative” to work. Ministers have previously described it as the most ambitious reform of public services since the creation of the NHS.

The plans would make ministers accountable for adult social care in Scotland. Councils would no longer run social care services, while "care boards" would be created to fulfil a similar function to existing health boards.

Local authority leaders, opposition politicians and trade unions have all strongly criticised the plans, with the latter calling them an "all-out assault on local democracy". Concerns have also been raised over their cost, with Scottish Parliament researchers previously estimating this was likely to be between £664m and £1.261 billion over five years.

Ms Forbes said: "For it to work, it needs to be a Scotland-wide initiative. By that I mean, it needs to have the confidence of workers – ie trade unions; local government, who will be implementing much of it; and the Scottish Parliament, and I understand that about four committees have raised different points around it.

"I don't think a scheme can be effectively delivered unless it has the confidence of the people that are either going to be implementing it, managing it or informing how it is run."

She added: "I think secondly, we need to get back to the original review, which is identifying the problems with care, but largely focused on the fact that it's a postcode lottery and there isn't a universal standard level of care. These are the problems that we're trying to fix. So rather than creating something that's massive and doesn't necessarily solve the core problems, I think it's almost simpler than that, which is how do we ensure that there is that universal standard of care across Scotland? And how do we ensure that it's not a postcode lottery?

"That may not require a National Care Service. It may require us to be a little bit more nimble and able to plug the gaps in care. I think anything that disempowers and centralises power is not going to fix the problem."

Asked if she would want to look at the plans again, she said: "Yeah."

Meanwhile, Ms Forbes said it was an “excellent idea to have an independent inquiry that would be looking at the short, the medium and the long-term future of the NHS”.

She added: “Obviously, you would need to – and I wouldn’t in any way swerve on this one – you would need to have as an absolute foundation stone, that it continues to be free at the point of need. That would be an absolute non-negotiable. But that long-term future I think needs to be considered, and I think it’s very attractive for it to be considered by senior thought leaders from within the health service, ideally people that are on the front line.”

She continued: “And it needs to be radical. So long as we don’t negotiate on the idea that it is free at the point of need, it needs to be radical.”

Ms Forbes said the transition to net zero “presents Scotland with considerable economic as well as environmental opportunities”. But she told the Reform Scotland event: "If you throw oil and gas to the wind in a way that compromises our economic security, in a way that hinders them investing large sums of money in the transition, then we’ve lost the opportunity.”

She said Scotland needed to move “at the right pace”.

Ms Forbes also said she wanted to see an “expanded tax base”. She said: “I think it's been viewed as sort of unacceptable or a bit of a dirty word to talk about wealth creation. But actually, we're talking about creating wealth for a purpose. It’s wealth in order to do something, it's wealth to create jobs, well-paid, secure jobs.

“It’s wealth to power the Scottish economy, it’s wealth in order to raise the revenue to reinvest in our public services. And so I think wealth creation has become a bit of a dirty term, but there is no public services without wealth.”

She added: “I don't think the answer to low growth is ridiculously high taxes, but I do think in order to keep our public services sufficiently well invested, the Government's had to look at ways to maximise the revenue. The best way to maximise revenue is a broad tax base, where most working age adults are in well-paid, secure employment and making that contribution.”

Kate Forbes says she will rethink SNP's flagship National Care Service plans

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