OBJECTIVES: Given the financial crisis-driven budget cuts and the experienced shortages in nursing stuff, this study aims to identify the factors that have contributed to nurses shortages, the optimum size of nursing stuff, the potential improvement of nurses skills and role and the more effective measures to cope with the current circumstances METHODS: Experts from the fields of nursing and hospital management were invited to participate in an expert panel and asked to provide their opinion on the issues concerned with the objectives of the study RESULTS: Of the 32 experts invited 20 (62.5%) accepted to participate. The majority of the panelists argued that the main reasons of nurses’ shortages are the lack of workforce planning and the undersupply of nurses. Experts supported that nursing personnel should at least triple (10.5 nurses/1000 population and 2.5 nurses/hospital bed) and the nurses-doctor ratio should change from 0.61 nurses/doctor to 3 - 4 nurse/doctor. Most of the experts argued that more nurses should be university graduates and continuing education programs should be introduced. The substitution of doctors’ services from nurses was widely accepted and argued that nurses’ role can be expanded to prescribing, to the provision of preventive services, to the management of chronic condition patients and to diagnostic tests interpretation. Finally, in light of reduced health care budgets it was argued that shortages-driven issues could be partially addressed by redistributing the existing personnel according to population and hospitals’ needs. CONCLUSIONS: The measures suggested for the improvement of nursing services quantity and quality may obscure in the constraints imposed by the current financial crisis. Redistributing the existing personnel can only provide a temporary solution. However, this study stresses the need for an effective workforce planning in order for the health system to guarantee an adequate level of services and equity in access, in times of reduced budgets.