Admission to hospital department managed before church (8)
I believe the answer is:
entrance
'admission' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'hospital department managed before church' is the wordplay.
'hospital department' becomes 'ent'.
'managed' becomes 'ran' (I've seen this before).
'before' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'church' becomes 'ce' (abbreviation for Church of England).
'ent'+'ran'+'ce'='ENTRANCE'
'to' is the link.
(Other definitions for entrance that I've seen before include "it's common, say, for some children to sit" , "please" , "lobby?" , "Carry away" , "Means or place of going in" .)