The study assessed the training requirements of nursing assistants in 48 medical facilities in Jiaxing City, China through a cross-sectional survey with 1470 valid responses from 1600 questionnaires (91.9% response rate). There was a high coverage of training in pre-employment programs (92.6%) and in the workplace (87.0%), but the duration was short and the teaching took place mainly through lectures and mentoring. The main obstacles included scheduling conflicts, technological limits and a lack of practical content; 78.4% of respondents wanted retraining. Factors of lower demands were longer experience, job posting or direct hiring by families, while those in individual care and after completing on-the-job training had higher demands (all p < 0.05). Preferred formats were short meetings (1–3 days) monthly led by experienced nurses in hospitals with on-site mentoring. The most requested topics were the qualities of assistants (67.3%), especially communication techniques (59.2%) and practical skills. The study recommends improving practical relevance, mixed online-in-person methods and optimizing training frequency due to short duration and limited use of digital platforms.