Cutting line in a hospital department (10)
I believe the answer is:
astringent
'cutting' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'line in a hospital department' is the wordplay.
'line' becomes 'string' (string is a kind of line).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'hospital department' becomes 'ENT' (abbreviation for Ear, Nose and Throat department).
'a'+'ent'='aent'
'string' put into 'aent' is 'ASTRINGENT'.
(Other definitions for astringent that I've seen before include "for checking bleeding" , "Lotion" , "medical preparation" , "Caustic" , "description of wine?" .)