I don't know why the NHS give alternative names to their HAs. They should just tell us what we are getting. I've never been able to find out for sure which standard Siemens model my Reflex DSPs are equivalent to. I've tried googling it but have found next to no information.
They are never directly equivalent otherwise private dispensers would be able to get in an program them. They always make a slight adjustment to them to ensure the system won't recognise them. The Nathos range, for example, are almost exactly equivalent to Audeo V, Versata Micro, Versata M, Naida V SP and Naida V UP, however they have added the echoblock to all models so that if you hook it up to iPFG it will not be able to tell what the instruments are. Hack versions of iPFG exist, but of course if you screw it up neither Phonak nor the NHS is going to fix it for you.
Similarly, the Reflex range is based on the Artis profile and Impact upon the Motion profile, but they are not the same so you can't just plug them into a retail version of Connexx and have someone with more time and dedication program them up for you. So instead you get an instrument with more capability than they are prepared to turn on for you. My clinic "doesn't do" manual programs because "automatic is so good these days"

I challenge you to find many well-informed private consumers who don't have any manual programs. Automatic makes mistakes. In fact in my experience it seems to make nothing but, if I venture into somewhere like a shopping mall the whole thing shuts down to give me "comfort" :roll: To hear anything I have to go back outside again. (I'm sure it's a problem they
could fix, but they won't)
It would be nice if the information were at least available, though. Phonak models are not as difficult as the rest to get details on as the beige standard adult version normally has a datasheet on the SupplyChain catalogue pages, but the others you just don't get told anything. I'm sure it would help us work out why my Reflex is so crazy with my fitting if I got to see the data on it, perhaps it's set right up to the instrument limit, who knows?
No, you are supposed to get a hearing test and get told only "You need a hearing aid" and go and get "a hearing aid" and go home with it. Model NHS patient asks no questions. Model NHS patient, however, also keeps her hearing aids in a box in a drawer.
Of course, even if you find out what it's equivalent to, by that time the product is usally obselete in the open market and has vanished from websites.