New in UK please help

Hello I have recently moved to UK along with my wife and me and her are doing GP training currently we both are located in Tyne and Wear as our job requires us to do home visits and car is necessary and every six months we get rotated to different hospitals so can't always use metro.

So I have a got few questions:

1. I have a international licence valid till next January,should I finance a car and start driving?

2. I have been driving mostly manual cars since my teens and im now 30 so how should I go about the UK driving test. I was reading on the official website that i need atleast 184 days stay before i can book a test etc.

3 I can study for theory test through YouTube what about practical do I need to book lessons as I can drive perfectly and if yes how many lessons.

4. How should I buy car here is Autotraders the go to website?

5. Im not so sharp regarding the mechanics of cars previously bought cars from family members so didn't have to check much. Is there any service which can throughly check a car for me and give me a report afterwards?

Thank you.