The Queensland government will push for a national screening program for coalmine workers after a damning review into its own safeguards in relation to “black lung disease” exposed “major system failures at virtually all levels”.

Anthony Lynham, the state minister for mines, will also push for nationwide coal dust exposure limits, which workplace health experts say should be more than halved in both Queensland and New South Wales.

There are 11 Queensland miners diagnosed with the potentially fatal black lung disease – coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP) – which was previously thought eliminated.

But its rediscovery in new cases last year highlighted a regulatory failure shared by government, coal companies and their medical testing regime throughout a mining boom rated as the most lucrative in Australian history.

Lynham said more cases would emerge and asked whether NSW was “in the same situation as Queensland was but six months behind”.

“Is NSW actively looking for cases of coal workers’ pneumoconiosis as we are now?” he said. “There is no doubt this is a national issue.

“People do move from coalmining districts in NSW to Queensland all the time and we also have retired workers all over Australia that we have to find, have to mop up and have to rescreen.”

The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) maintains there could be hundreds of cases yet to emerge.

“I don’t doubt for a minute there are cases in other states,” the CFMEU state mining division president, Stephen Smyth, said.

Lynham said it was “very concerning” that 18 of 250 x-rays sent by the review team to the US for scrutiny showed early signs of the disease.

A review led by Monash University professor Malcolm Sim released on Wednesday found serious flaws in industry-led health screening, from misreading of x-rays to poorly executed lung tests and unqualified staff.

Failures in confirmed cases of CWP included attributing abnormal lung function test results “to tobacco smoking rather than coalmine dust exposure”.

Other cases with early signs of the disease were overlooked, with workers who could have been prevented from developing advanced CWP “deemed fit to work underground with no restrictions on further coalmine dust exposure”.

But the review warned that “medical screening and surveillance is not a substitute for effective dust control, which should be the first line of action in protecting coalmine workers from [disease]”.

Lynham said he “absolutely” supported calls for a national health registry for coalminers, and would press state colleagues and the incoming federal resources minister for it.

The Thoracic Society of Australia and New Zealand has called for a central registry to dispel secrecy around health data and protect it from possible intrusion by governments and mining companies.

Lynham said he would also press for national mine dust limits ahead of any recommendations for a cut by Safe Work Australia, pledging the Queensland government would adopt its recommendations due by the end of the year.

He said the mines inspectorate was actively policing the current level in all underground coalmines, which is three micrograms per cubic metre in Queensland and 2.5 micrograms per cubic metre in NSW.

The Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists has recommended the limit be cut to one micrograms per cubic metre.

The Queensland Resources Council chief executive, Michael Roche, said the industry was “not feeling precious about what the right level is” and would “follow suit” if there was a new standard.

Dr Greg Slater, president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists, said missed cases of black lung were “not an epidemic and it’s not the solution to this problem to say that there’s been a systemic failure in imaging”.

The Sim review recommended a “major overhaul” of Queensland’s lung screening process, including more training and rigorous credentials for doctors, better standards of lung function testing and including retired coalminers in testing regimens.

It found the “widespread belief that CWP had been eliminated in Queensland” led to “complacency about [its] risks”.

The lessons of the failures “have implications beyond the coalmining industry in Queensland”, with other states and industries with hazardous exposure to dust, such as silica, urged to “take note of our findings”.

The ABC has reported that one Queensland man recently diagnosed with black lung, Steve Mellor, could have developed the disease from as early as two years into his career as an underground miner.

The state government’s first steps after the review include a “dual reading system” for chest x-rays, with readings by Australian radiologists to be rechecked in the US until specialised training programs were completed.

It is not clear what costs by way of compensation claims are facing the eight companies with underground mines in Queensland: Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Caledon, Glencore, Idemitsu, Peabody, Rio Tinto and Vale.

Some of these mining companies “self-insure” and would be paying direct compensation to miners who would not be able to work on sites after contracting the disease.

Other miners would have to seek redress under the workers’ compensation scheme.

The mining companies have pledged to follow the recommendations of the Sim review and are offering employees new chest x-rays or certified readings.

Lynham acknowledged some workers who feared the end of their careers if diagnosed may be reluctant to seek testing. But he urged them to do so, saying their “health is more important” and that many mine sites featured jobs where there would be no exposure to dust.

Smyth said the key to mine workers’ regaining confidence in the system was “fixing the system literally at the coalface … around cutting methods, ventilation, water sprays”.

“Looking at dust levels generally but, in particular, forcing a change in a culture to make sure that coalmine workers are actually not being exposed to high levels of dust,” he said.