[Skybluebrewer]

Global processing times show 75% of applications are processed in 11 months and 90% in 13 months. Even if you applied on 1 December, you'd only be hitting 5 months of waiting today. Best to just be patient.

If an email pushed applications along, the immigration servers would crash with the amount of people waiting for partner visas emailing constantly. Not to mention all you'll likely get as a response is that your app has been received and is waiting in queue. They'll get to your application when they get to it. 5 months isn't long to have waited at all so far.

 

[Skybluebrewer]

Medicals and police checks are only valid for 12 months. Up to you to take the chance of doing them early or not. Some people just wait until requested via email by a CO. Some people wait until their app has been in the queue for awhile and then submit them without a request so the app is decision ready when someone looks at it. All up to you.