Wait in hospital area outside front of ICU (8)
I believe the answer is:
hesitate
'wait' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'hospital area outside front of icu' is the wordplay.
'hospital' becomes 'h'.
'area' becomes 'estate' (I have seen 'Industrial area' mean 'estate' so perhaps 'area' could also mean 'estate').
'outside' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'front of' says to take the initial letters.
The first letter of 'icu' is 'i'.
'estate' placed around 'i' is 'esitate'.
'h'+'esitate'='HESITATE'
'in' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for hesitate that I've seen before include "Show indecision" , "Delay making a decision" , "Pause in indecision" , "Stall" , "Pause, waver" .)