People throughout the region have gone years without a dental appointment due to a significant backlog of appointments, huge waiting lists, and not enough practices, reports the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
The ICB said issues affecting dentistry included difficulties recruiting and training dentists.
Many dentists also report “struggling to afford the cost of delivering NHS services”, the spokesman said.
“Some of the challenges faced by NHS dentistry require fundamental reforms to the dental contract,” they said.
They added government measures to improve NHS dentistry were coming in in April, with a focus on urgent care and complex needs.
The ICB said: “We have recently invested £9.5 million on a new model of care to ensure people can manage urgent dental issues safely.
“This includes bringing online a network of 23 Urgent Dental Access Centres (UDACs) that will provide over 100,000 urgent dental appointments every year.”
New UDACs opened in Durham City, Barnard Castle and Peterlee last year, providing in-hours urgent dental care for patients.